Circuit Ghost
by Cuckoo on a String
Summary: Khan is a master chess player, but not all pieces follow the rules. Every machine has its ghosts, and Section 31 is no different. Only its ghost drinks coffee and prefers to terrorize technologically challenged ensigns. 'John Harrison' was not prepared for this. Liberal doses of humor over a fairly angsty plotline. Takes place in the year before Into Darkness. Some OCs.
1. Coffee

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Star Trek_. Please don't take away my coffee.**

After several weeks of _conditioning_, Admiral Marcus finally let his pet out to play with the other dogs. All the humiliation. The degradation. The arrogance. None acceptable, not easy to forgive, but all the tests, and the pain (yes, _pain_ – even his superior body suffered limitations) – all of it paled next to the Admiral's greatest trump. His greatest mistake.

One toe out of line meant one less life nestled in the frigid safety of the cryotubes. The Admiral threatened his crew, his _family_, and for that there could be no forgiveness. Khan would give the Admiral his war, but it would not be with the Klingons. But chess, the purest game of war, was not a quick exchange of hostilities. The wise player hid his strengths, distracted his opponent, and murdered the opposing king with a sudden and violent assault. So it would be with Marcus. Khan would bide his time and wait until the time was ripe. Until then, he would savor his fantasies of destruction, of clapping his hands to the man's head and _squeezing_, pouring his hate and his rage into his palms until they met, slicked with gore.

And until then, he would build the man weapons and play the good dog. He wouldn't pull at the leash, wouldn't bite the hand that fed. He would lull them into a false sense of security, and then – oh, then – he would have his vengeance.

Across the room, Lieutenant Jacobs swore. Only the faintest interest touched Khan's mind; his thoughts were too busy with the designs for his new torpedoes to bother with the lesser human.

Upon his release from the medical facility where he had first been awakened, Khan had been assigned an armed escort. In the eyes of the staff and scientists, the man was John Harrison's aide. In reality, he was Khan's minder. Jacobs shadowed him from room to room, hour to hour – constantly. He was a buzzing fly Khan was not allowed to swat, and it took a great amount of control to restrain his more savage instincts. The man was clearly inferior. Not only was his body weak, but his mind was soft and flabby. Though Khan had only been able to study the technological advances of the past three hundred years for a few days, this man had been exposed to such basics his entire life, and yet he couldn't manage the technology at his own work station.

Pathetic.

Jacobs grabbed his communicator.

And then the day grew just a little more interesting.

.O.O.O.

She was up to her elbows in wires, half buried in the computer's housing. It was a mess. Unnecessary rats' nests of twisted cables twined through the cavernous space, mutated blood vessels linking the blinking circuit boards and power cells.

Whoever put this together deserved to be shot.

And then stabbed.

And then subjected to the Viking blood-eagle.

And it still wouldn't be enough.

The mewling ensign assigned to this nightmarish work station was bleating his thanks from the bright world above.

"I can't thank you enough. Have you figured out the problem? It's crashed two times in the last week, and I've lost so many man hours…"

Oh, _stars_, enough already. "Hey," she said, "want to help?"

"Yes!"

The enthusiasm (wouldn't last) took the sharp edge off her irritation, and she swallowed the _"Great. Shut-up or get out"_ that hovered at the tip of her tongue. But he was still annoying, and she desperately wanted silence to finish her job. "Get me some coffee from the mess hall, would ya? I'm running low."

"Oh… oh, sure!" And the little ensign was off like a shot. Poor mite. He couldn't have pictured this when he signed up for Starfleet.

Left in perfect silence, she returned to gutting the bad wiring job. No wonder it kept crashing. The cables were so twisted the combined weight kept pulling individual wires from their ports. So help her, if she found out who was responsible… were all the workstations like this? Please, please – just – no.

They didn't pay her enough for this crap.

Her communicator chirped, and she fished for it blindly with one hand as she tried to reattach a pair of cables with the other.

Flipping it open, she half sang, "Starfleet's favorite techie, please hold while I compensate for your organization's lack of brainpower."

"_Tyrrin? Hey, yeah. I need you."_

Ah. Jacobs. Because no Monday was complete without a regular dose of incompetency. Goodness knew the man had muscles – just not the one that counted. "Well aren't you forward. What brought this on?"

"_My work station froze up."_

Her eye wandered over her current predicament. Was this _really_ how every work station was wired? "Well, maybe it's trying to give you a hint. Girls don't like to be rushed, you know. Too much pressure and – poof! – goodbye, good times." The sass and snark came easily, running the conversation while she tried to process this new development.

"_Seriously, Tyrrin."_

"I'm always serious." She tugged at the weave of cables above her. "Give me twenty minutes." She paused. "And have coffee ready."

.O.O.O.

Tyrrin waltzed into Jacobs' office with her usual pomp. He wasn't alone. A stranger was in the office, seated at the work station opposite, and Tyrrin felt the frost emanating from his aura chilling her as she stepped through the door. He wasn't even looking at her, but she instantly knew this was no mindless grunt. Nor was he a wilted scientist. There was something she couldn't quite…

She'd figure it out. Until then, she'd avoid spending time alone with him. This was definitely a Kitten Killer.

Jacobs glanced up and all but melted at the sight of her. She gave him a quick Cheshire Cat grin and clasped her hands behind her back.

"I was surprised to get your call," she said. "Weren't you reassigned?"

"Well…" His eyes darted to the side, and Tyrrin followed them to the cold man across the office. "Yeah, but you know how Starfleet is."

"More interested in training their female officers how to bend over without showing their skivvies than how to do their jobs?"

Jacobs flushed. "This is my new assignment." He frowned at his computer, refusing to make eye contact until he had his thoughts back on task. Then he snapped his eyes back to Tyrrin. "Can't you just say 'Welcome back' like a normal person?"

"I could," she said, "but sarcasm is my greatest charm. You love me, don't lie to yourself." She made a show of scanning his desk and spread her hands. "Coffee?"

Jacobs pulled out a thermos and set it between them. Tyrrin popped off the cap and took a deep sniff. It wasn't great, but it was fresh. "Passable. Now show me to the problem. You said your computer was frozen."

"Yeah…" He pushed back from the desk, and Tyrrin dove for the access panel. It was ground level, like the last, and she'd have to go spelunking to find the issue. No time for chit chat.

Before she dove into the depths, she snuck a peek across the room and found herself meeting an alarming pair of frigid blue eyes. The Kitten Killer eyed her dispassionately. "Why are you out of uniform?"

That voice… _damn_. Tyrrin couldn't believe how much the man could pack into one sentence – a query, an order, casual disdain, and a hint of irritation promising tremendous amounts of pain. That was the voice of a leader, no doubt. And doubtless he was pissed he couldn't plug her into one of the usual slots in the hierarchy. That was the true purpose of uniforms – one look and you knew everything you needed: rank, area of expertise, etc. And if there was one thing Tyrrin loved about her job, it was screwing with the command structure.

"Don't have one," she said as she slid into the belly of the beast. She tried to ignore the relief that came from escaping those eyes. "Could you imagine doing this in a miniskirt? Without leggings? The ensigns would never get anything done… not that the ensigns get anything done, anyway, but…"

Jacobs, bless his one-celled brain, decided to intervene on her behalf. "She's not Starfleet personnel. She's a private contractor."

What a dry description. It needed some flavor. "I fix the complicated crap they're too stupid to use."

"Tyrrin!"

Hidden in the cables, she grinned, and mocking Jacobs' exasperated tone, whined, "Thomas!"

And then she saw it – or rather, realized what she wasn't seeing. There was no mess. Everything was properly wired and linked in an organized fashion. Whatever monster mangled the ensign's work station had clearly not set up any of the stations in this wing of Section 31. While that was well and good, it also meant…

"Oh my stars, Jacobs! You are such an idiot." She sprang from the bowels of the machine, spitting fire. The lieutenant blanched and took a half step back, catching himself before he executed a full retreat and casting a nervous glance across the room. Tyrrin was a little offended. Yeah, the Kitten Killer was freaky as heck, but she was definitely the immediate threat. "This is a record low, you know. I think you deserve a place on the Wall of Shame." With an exaggerated flourish, she poked the On/Off switch beside the work stations main interface portal. The frozen screen winked black. Then, with a whistle and a chime, it rushed back to fully functional life.

"On and off again. Seriously?" She grabbed the thermos and snatched her tech bag from where she'd tossed it beside Jacob's chair. "Don't call me for this crap – I've got bigger problems. Tanner almost blew the foundation earlier – his drive was actually smoking when I came in. Idiot doesn't know a fire when he sees one… he must have done very poorly in cub scouts."

She turned around to find the Kitten Killer standing by his desk, hands clasped behind his back, his frosty eyes gleaming with attentive energy. There had been no whisper of cloth as he stood, no creak of the chair. It was downright eerie, and Tyrrin felt, suddenly, that the center of this man's attention was a very bad place to be.

Addressing Jacobs, he said, "I believe introductions are in order, lieutenant." He smirked, and it was one of the most uncomfortable expressions Tyrrin had ever seen. She'd seen plenty of fake smiles in her time, but this one wasn't artificial. At the same time, Tyrrin doubted it had anything to do with the conversation. Something was twisting in that man's mind, and that was what he found humorous, not the pathetic display of geekery before him.

"Sir," Jacobs said. "This is… Tyrrin Regent."

Even her name was a damn power-play. She couldn't help the smile that slipped over her face. The Kitten Killer remained un-phased.

Jacobs flushed, obviously uncomfortable with the tension hanging in the air. Interesting. He hurried to continue. "No rank. She's responsible for managing all the base systems. Tyrrin, this is," He hesitated – only for an instant – but there was a flutter in his voice as he tried to spit out the Kitten Killer's name. "Commander John Harrison."

Jacobs was lying.

Raising her chin, Tyrrin mirrored the Commander's stance. All of a sudden he was much more interesting. A regular Kitten Killer could be blamed on poor parenting, a dash of childhood trauma and an affinity for violence. Not worth noting, definitely worth avoiding. But a mystery Kitten Killer? Much more noteworthy. There was a reason she had such a high clearance level, and that was, quite simply, because she was bound to stumble across all of Section 31's dirty laundry on her wanderings through the system. She fixed the Admiral's computer as well as the ensigns', and she serviced the network they all used to store their data. There were no secrets from the techie.

The Kitten Killer narrowed his eyes, and Tyrrin could see the analysis running behind them.

"Miss Regent." He purred her name like he purred every other word, and the techie was forced to squelch the chills tickling up her spine. "Why such…studied informality?"

It was difficult to tell if he was irritated. He wasn't wrong. Her casual flippancy _was_ studied. The best way to maintain her independence in such a structured environment was not to break but to actively ignore the rules. That set her apart. It marked her individuality from the command structure, and that gave her a certain amount of power. Very few ever grasped that, even fewer picked up on her game so quickly. Kudos.

But she didn't sing on command. She answered him with a shrug. "Why not?"

Commander Harrison seemed to lose interest and turned away, dismissing her without a word. Sending Jacobs one last look, Tyrrin strode towards the door. She tried not to feel so relieved when she escaped into the hallway.

**A/N: Not a very long opening chapter, but it'll do. I was happily working on my other fic, when I went to see _Into Darkness _with my dad. I've been raised in the fandom, but I've never considered it especially sexy until now. Khan, just... wow. The plot bunnies heard the dinner bell and several sank their teeth into my posterior. The most determined hanger-on is what you see here. **

_**Things are not as they**__** seem.**_

**I know everyone says that, so I won't try to convince you here. I actually have a fully functional story arch laid out for this story, but right now my other fic has seniority over this one. That means I'll update when I can, but we all know what REALLY decides seniority - reviews. **

**So let me know what you think/what you'd like to see. As I said, I already have an arch established for this little tale, but Tyrrin is a delightful little troublemaker, and if you have requests for ways you'd like to see her screw with Admiral Marcus and/or Khan, feel free to leave your suggestions in the pretty little box below. **

**Should I keep going with this? Storytelling is best when you're not speaking to an empty room.**


	2. Queen

**Disclaimer: If you don't recognize it, I don't own it.**

Queen

The ensigns made an altar for her. They all contributed, leaving little offerings to compensate for the number of hours she spent buried in their terminals. Several pitched in for gourmet coffee, another provided an old fashioned percolator, and the rest brought chocolate covered espresso beans. Their devotion paid off in the end, because Tyrrin bumped their status from the bottom of the list to the middle. There would always be jobs that came before ensign work station maintenance, but there were plenty of moderately ranked officers Tyrrin had no problem downgrading. Bribery aside, the ensigns actually did need more help than most, partly because they were ensigns, and partly because many of their workstations were as badly wired as the one Tyrrin fixed before the met the Kitten Killer.

Ah, the Kitten Killer.

There had been no more calls from Jacobs, so that was a nightmare she had yet to relive. Her days were busy enough with the unsophisticated idiots Admiral Marcus preferred to hire. There were no intellectuals with whom she could share a meal, no techies advanced enough to compete with her knowledge of the operating systems. It was enough to drive her to distraction. So she kept herself busy, and in a super secret weapons facility with some of the most advanced tech in the Federation, it wasn't too hard. But every now and again there was a slow day. No terminals crashed. No PADDs glitched. No ensigns confused screensavers with anonymous hackers. On those days, she invented her own problems – ghosts that ate non-vital information on the scientists' computers, bugs that froze screens, even a special virus that made the cafeteria door open and close at random intervals. _That_ was entertaining. It was like red light, green light with grown-ups.

Admiral Marcus let her play. There was an understanding when she was hired. The job was good for her, because it kept her on planet and away from convoluted relationships. Her work was good for him because she could do the work of an entire tech team, drastically cutting back on the number of eyes he had to risk peeking into the uglier side of Section 31. And, of course, she was trustworthy in a uniquely certain way. For all her rebellion, she was a limited risk.

But why ruin a good day? It was time to think about something else.

Tyrrin swiveled in her chair, lounging in her 'Tank', the glass-walled office Marcus had assigned her. Despite their special understanding, he trusted her about as far as his secretary could throw her, and the glass was obviously meant to discourage any unnecessary file surfing. It made Tyrrin just that much more curious. Her eyes trailed away from the three glass walls and lingered on the fourth, the only opaque wall she could call her own. Dozens of eyes looked back at her, and she grinned.

The Wall of Shame. When especially stupid souls like Jacobs pushed the Idiot Button a few too many times, Tyrrin searched through every public (or hackable) database until she found the perfectly embarrassing picture of her victim. Then she printed it and tacked it to the wall. It was old fashioned, and Tyrrin admitted the practice flirted with downright bullying, but she'd lost sympathy for such victims long ago, and she looked up at her trophies with no regrets. Those faces belonged there, just like their owners belonged a thousand miles from any computer. Jacobs was destined to join them. He'd been warned, and the next time he pulled an idiot stunt, his ugly mug was going on her wall.

And then…

"Hey, Tyrrin."

Think of the Devil.

She spun around in a lazy circle, disinterested – or at least pretending to be. Jacobs was no big deal, but if he'd brought the Kitten Killer… She let her eyes slide around the glass walls until they landed on the twit in uniform – and the tall dark Commander behind him.

He _had_ brought the Kitten Killer. Tyrrin tried to decide if she was dismayed or elated. On one hand, the Kitten Killer oozed _Threat_. On the other, he also oozed intelligence, and she was so painfully bored. Well, nothing risked, nothing gained, right? Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. This was just another game, and she didn't have a lot to lose. She lost life's greatest gamble a long time back, so there was only so much she could risk. She would just have to be very, very careful.

"Hi," she drawled. She was careful to keep her posture relaxed, maintaining her boneless slump as she greeted her guests. Her boredom seeped from her very pores, and the Kitten Killer seemed to smell it. He canted his head as Jacobs stepped into the room. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"We, uh," Jacobs glanced over his shoulder at Commander Harrison. "Had a favor to ask."

"The system I am required to work with cannot process data at the necessary speed," Harrison said. He all but droned the implied order, his voice was so relaxed. His words carried the lethargic power of a capable (and spoiled) leader. Underlings were meant to do the leg work, and he _expected_ them to do so. It was an undisguised claim to authority, but Tyrrin knew he underestimated her. When they first met, he immediately understood her casual disregard for rules and regulation stemmed from an intentional disrespect designed to cut herself out of the hierarchy. However, he assumed she maintained her independence because she was allowed to. For all his analysis, he'd misjudged her. Whether he realized it or not, he'd been taken in by her games. The Kitten Killer thought she was fodder. Silly Commander.

"Well." She pushed her seat around in a wide circle, staring up at the ceiling as she made a show of considering her schedule. "Right now I have several loads of… nothing, really. I'm _bored_." She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. This was where she marked her turf, and her turf was herself. She was no man's underling, no Commander's pet, no Admiral's lackey. She wasn't property of any kind, and she bowed to no form of slavery, no matter how beneficent or structured. Her expression wasn't hostile, but it was set.

Commander Harrison drew himself up, just a little, and lifted his chin so he was almost peering down his nose at her. Message received and understood. Tyrrin wasn't sure he accepted it, but it was good enough for the time being.

"What exactly is the problem? Processing speed, storage space, incompatible programming?" She didn't really expect him to know, but he'd thrown the gauntlet, so she was within her rights to push back.

"I believe there is a minor flaw in the system's programming that has been poorly patched over by previous electrical engineers, and the problem is so deep in the code I cannot spend the necessary time to find it."

Tyrrin was, against her will, impressed. To recognize a problem beyond "My computer's running slow" required some insight. Most brass were as useless as pushpins to carpenters, but maybe Commander Harrison's frigid superiority had some clout after all. Not enough to win Tyrrin as an acolyte, but maybe enough to validate some attention.

"I'll see what I can do. But I'll probably have to boot you out of your workstation while I look for the problem, so I'll wait until after regular business hours." She waited a bit and allowed the silence to set. "If that's alright."

He smiled – slow, smooth, almost predatory. "That will be satisfactory. Thank you, Miss Regent."

"Oh, I know you're new," Tyrrin cooed, "but you can call me Tyrrin. Everyone else does, you know."

Jacobs was turning purple. Tyrrin desperately wanted to make a crack about his blood pressure, but she didn't want to break the poor thing. Instead, she tried for a modicum of civility. "Feeling alright, Jacobs?"

"Fine," he all but squeaked.

Commander Harrison turned his cool eyes on the lieutenant, and Tyrrin could almost feel the ice from across the room. Curiouser and curiouser. Jacobs lied about Commander Harrison's name. That was obvious. By why? There were plenty of reasons to take an alias, goodness knew she'd had plenty of her own over the years, but why would the name make Jacobs so uncomfortable? And why was he _always_ with the Commander? It was Jacobs who keyed open restricted doors, and it was Jacobs who offered his eye for the scanner.

The first seed of suspicion took root in her mind.

The two men left, and Tyrrin took a moment to chew over her thoughts, swaying back and forth in her chair, straining to recall all the available data she'd picked up on the Commander. Most curious, indeed.

It was time for more coffee.

.O.O.O.

Dinner was turning out to be more fun than Tyrrin expected. As a last ditch effort to save her sanity, she'd bugged the replicator. It provided food when ordered, but what was requested and what was provided were rarely the same thing. Most of the staff had gone home, but there were still a good dozen or two in the building, and the majority of those gravitated to the mess for fuel and companionship. They were tired, with their defenses lowered at the end of the work day, and that made them all perfect targets.

Tyrrin picked a gaggle of female engineering techs to eat with, and let them in on the plot. After all, a good prank was pointless without an audience, and the skirted engineers seemed almost as bored as she was. They sat in a corner, tittering as each victim approached the replicator and plugged in their order. A young secretary looking for tofu pad Thai got fish fingers and custard. A man looking for a burger got dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets with a side of creamed spinach. One woman plugged in a daring order for some exotic alien meal and got an equally exotic but entirely unrelated alien meal back. Tyrrin basked in the howls and shrieks from her new cohorts. One man tremulously ordered a pizza; Tyrrin had never seen a man so happy to receive a slice of pepperoni pie in her entire life. The looks on her victims' faces were so delightfully befuddled. For a society that depended as much as they did on technology, citizens were woefully unprepared for dealing with sadistic gremlins like Tyrrin.

And then Jacobs came in with his usual grim shadow. The mounting ruckus abruptly died, and all eyes turned to Harrison. So she wasn't the only one who picked up on the kitten killer vibe, then. Interesting. Jacobs waved to and greeted a few of his fellow red shirts as he crossed to the replicator, but Harrison didn't even try to be friendly. He was cold and stiff as a statue, utterly disinterested in interacting with the colorful throng around him. For their part, the throng seemed equally disinterested in interacting with him, but more from fear than disdain. What must he be like in his office to earn such a reputation? Tyrrin made a note to investigate further.

Jacobs was almost to the replicator now, and the entire mess held its breath. He keyed in an order for a popular form of Andorian fast food, and received a steaming bowl of macaroni and cheese instead. Having studied the man's profile, Tyrrin was well aware of his lactose intolerance, and she couldn't repress the giggle that welled up in her throat. Cued by her glee, the rest of the mess hall's occupants thawed and began to cackle in earnest again.

Everyone pointed looked away when Harrison stepped up to select his food, but Tyrrin watched intently. He was smirking, but there was flint in his eyes. Jacobs losing his dignity was one thing, but for the Commander to lose his… well, that was a different matter entirely. But he was clever, far cleverer than any of the other Starfleet grunts, and Tyrrin managed to read his order as he punched it in. It was the random code. He couldn't be surprised, because he was expecting a surprise.

Touché.

The replicator presented him with a perfectly respectable meal of curry and rice, and he assumed his seat beside Jacobs with quiet elegance. No gloating. No mocking. Neither was needed. His point was made, and Tyrrin couldn't hide her approving grin. Commander Harrison caught the look, like he caught everything, but he didn't respond.

Childish pranks must be beneath him. What a shame. The man was brilliant, and Tyrrin didn't doubt his ingenuity could give her a run for her money. But what good was that brilliance when it schooled into such a dour and obedient shape? Rules were the death of creativity.

For the second time in ten minutes, the mess went silent, and Tyrrin glanced toward the door to see none other than Admiral Marcus himself. In all her time in Section 31, Tyrrin had never seen the man eat with the common folk. He was rarely on site, and even when he was, he ordered his food fresh and prepared by hand. He never sank to their level, and Tyrrin never regretted his decision. The man was like sandpaper, unforgiving and rough. He had the sophistication of a sea urchin along with all the necessary spikes. He was huggable as a cactus and inspirational as the lyrics to a Rebecca Black song. Why was he there? What had drawn him down to the depths?

Everyone – sans Tyrrin – surged to their feet and sprang to salute.

With barely a glance around the room, the Admiral marched straight to Commander Harrison's table. "How are things progressing?" he asked. "I trust you're adapting well."

Commander Harrison, the Kitten Killer, had never looked so ferocious. He was a tense ball of potential violence, and Tyrrin counted the tables between them to ensure her own safety. "As well as can be expected."

"Good." The Admiral nodded and glanced at the replicator. With a grin for the benefit of the rest of the staff, he said, "Might as well grab a bite while I'm here, right?" Whatever response he was hoping for, he didn't get, and he turned to punch in his code with a frown. Having the Admiral over for dinner would put anyone on edge, but the true reason for the staff's reticence was the prank about to land on their leader's plate. Quite literally.

A thick, pasty gruel appeared in his dish, and he stared at it for a moment in obvious befuddlement. His eyes sharpened and snapped across the mess hall to where Tyrrin was happily sipping her coffee. If looks could kill, she would be drawn, quartered, and shaved into deli meat. She hadn't been so pleased with herself in months. Without a word, the Admiral turned on his heel and left the room, leaving his subordinates to struggle for conversation in his wake.

Bored by the fashion discussion her gaggle of engineers turned to, Tyrrin scanned the crowd. She found Commander Harrison locked on her with those alarming eyes. His face was set. It finally seemed to have finally dawned on him that she wasn't just grandstanding. She was Section 31's rogue element. She was not Starfleet. She was not bound to the same rules as lesser mortals. She postured and played because she could. It wasn't a ploy – she really did have enough power to squander it on practical jokes and casual defiance and still have enough left over to win staring contests with Admirals.

She saluted Harrison with her spoon and rose from the table. Her empty cup landed on the dish line, and she swaggered back to the Tank with the self assurance of conquering monarch.

**A/N: Looky, looky! An update! So, apparently I'm queen of the anons. ALL HAIL THE ANONS! And DevonF, because DevonF will always have a place in my court.**

**I still have some wiggle room in the plot, by the way. The main points/developments are laid out, but if anyone has specific comedic requests/fan vengeance for Admiral Marcus/etc. do share. Just leave your thoughts in the big shiny box below. **

**You guys almost beat out the _Presto_ reviewers! You were one short, so they got first dibs on updating this past round. Who will win next?**

**Replies to Anons:**

**Kat: Why, thank you very much! So, when I first read your review and saw "limp noodle" I saw Mushu in my head screaming, "Say that to my face, ya limp noodle!" I may have giggled. A lot. Thanks again! Hope you continue to enjoy the story!  
**

**Morumotto: Weeeee, I like your review! Thankies much!**

**CoffeeStealer: Those are fightin' words, partner. (Thanks for the review!)**

**Guest: Yay! Welcome to the looney bin! I hope you're still around - thanks so much for the review!**


	3. Icicles

**Disclaimer: Still not old enough to be the writer of _Star Trek_. Sorry, Charlie.**

Icicles

There was no reason an operation the size of Section 31 should need such a large room for waste product. There was already one designated dump, though it was a little small. But still… Sure, they made a lot of crap in every sense of the word, and making crap inevitably led to lots of spare crap that got clipped off at the corners, but even with all the scientists' toys and mountains of half-eaten food from the mess, there was no reason for a room more than half that space to be designated as a trash dump. Few things that went into Section 31 came back out. They kept their trash and recycled it into new, shiny toys, or stuffed the organic matter in the food replicator and prayed they weren't eating reprocessed toenails as they nibbled on their grilled cheese. But still… it was too much space. The figures didn't add up.

Tyrrin hated it when the numbers didn't add up. She took it as a personal affront. It was inefficient and tacky and downright _rude_. She scoured the data, looking for the signature of whatever idiot was responsible. Space was a premium underground, and Section 31 lost much of it to the sheer scale of their projects. That space could be put to better use, surely.

And then she saw the name, the ghostly data signature of the man responsible for the room's designation as a trash dump. _Admiral Marcus_.

Her frustration morphed into puzzlement. Then doubt. Then curiosity. Just when she had her job figured out, that man had to go and complicate her life. No way in a million years would the Admiral waste his time picking which room to dump the trash in. He had underlings for that, underlings of underlings even. Tyrrin didn't know exactly what was in that room, but she was pretty sure that, whatever it was, it wasn't garbage.

An unsolved puzzle was like a cavity of the mind. It stung and ached, drawing her attention just when she thought she'd forgotten it. She worried at it with her thoughts, probing for relief. She couldn't ignore it. The mystery sat there on her screen, a room – obviously mislabeled – with the Admiral's personal lie stamped across it. How could she resist?

Security cameras were easy to dupe. The trick was all in the timing. Everything must be perfectly coordinated. She had to know when the change between each camera was coming, and she had no know exactly how long she had before she had to be somewhere else. The game was harder when more people were added to the equation, but it was well past regular business hours, and apart from a few doctors glued by their eye to their microscopes and the usual security compliment (predictable as death), Tyrrin was alone.

She wrote the necessary programs in five minutes flat. Then she sat at her desk, busily arranging the schedule of demands for the next morning. The cameras watched as she fell into a regular pattern, a dance of repetitive motions, and then the loop took effect. Hypnotized, the cameras knew no better, and Tyrrin marched down the halls unobserved, completely free.

True freedom rested in secrecy, in the ability to withhold knowledge and convince your enemy of a lie. Power could be found in any hand, so long as you didn't show your cards. It was all in the bluff. A little misdirection could land someone miles from the truth with just a little patience. And Tyrrin was nothing if not patient.

This was why Tyrrin enjoyed her insomnia. She worked during daylight hours with all the regular grunts, but when they crawled home and burrowed under the covers, she was still there, working on mysteries and teasing out riddles. It was better than vampirism. Blood-drunk ghouls were hostage to the moon as humans were to the sun. Tyrrin was something else, something better. She ruled the night as much as she did the day, and she watched the sun rise, set, and rise again like some primal goddess – immune to the demands of time.

Of course, the crashes always came, and they were brutal. She'd fight until her consciousness slipped away, and then she'd bob idly through dreams and half-conceived nightmares until she surfaced again to a world that had the audacity to go on without her. Dying would be like that, she supposed. The world would spin on, and she'd never wake up. She was only master while she was alert. Once her attention slipped, the world got notions of its own.

Tyrrin found the store room easily. It was part of the block of storage facilities in the lowest level of the underground research facility. It went on for nearly a mile, but it was tidily organized, and everything was neatly labeled – or almost everything. There was a lock on the door, as there was a lock on all the doors in Section 31, but security on this level was abysmal, and Tyrrin only wasted five minutes cracking it. The ease of it all was almost painful. She waltzed in like she owned the place.

And then she saw the cryotubes.

Her knee-jerk theory was that she'd stumbled on some kind of secret medical experiment, possibly one with personal ties to Marcus. That could explain the deception. But as she approached the first pod, she noted its age, and she knew this was no study. This was ancient history. Her fingers brushed the control panel. It read steady. Tyrrin peered down through the glass at the man inside, and realized he was still alive.

He must be centuries old. But how many? History had been Tyrrin's favorite subject in school, before her parents divorced and she turned from people to machines. History asked a lot of questions, but there were no definite answers. Computers only asked what she wanted them to, and their problems were easy to solve. It seemed like a better use of her time. The field offered rapid advancement, and at the time she'd been keenly interested in advancing _out_ of her home.

Now she was beginning to regret that decision. She scrabbled for memories of old books and data cards, trying to place the technology at her fingertips. It was old, really old, maybe one of the first prototypes, in fact. When would that place it? When did cryosleep develop?

The Eugenics Wars.

She looked down at the pale face with fresh surprise. If these people were from the Eugenics Wars, then… who were they? Who was worth preserving during the Wars? _Augments_. Possibly scientists, but more likely their genetically engineered masterworks.

It was impossible. All of this, quite frankly, was impossible, and the logical core of Tyrrin's mind buzzed restlessly as her senses forced it to process this new data.

She pressed her hands to the glass and watched the man's face, hunting for signs of life in the rigid flesh until his face clouded over with the fog from her breath. Still on her knees, Tyrrin crept to the next cryotube. A woman rested inside, scarcely older than Tyr herself. She repeated the process – look, touch, study, move – until she'd examined each and every face. There were seventy three. Seventy three people frozen in Section 31's basement, labeled as refuse. It was almost too horrible to believe.

_Why was Marcus hiding Augments in the basement?_

The alarm she'd programmed on her PADD went off, and she knew her time was up. She didn't want to leave. Such discoveries took time to sink in, and she wasn't sure she could face her old reality just yet. Her mask hadn't had time to set. But would anyone notice? Probably not.

She took the lift up to the floor beneath hers. Security tightened around that area, and she didn't want to risk taking the lift to her floor. The stairs suited her just fine. In order to reach them, however, she had to pass through the main block of engineering and design offices. It was a mild risk at such an hour, and she began her march through the darkened corridors with only a moment's hesitation.

Commander Harrison's light was on. An overwhelming urge to seek out human company stirred in the pit of her gut, and she peered longingly toward the glow. All those people alone in their pods, probably for the past several centuries. It was like something from a nightmare. Any face would be welcome after that, even a Kitten Killer's. Tyrrin had precious few minutes before a security patrol swept her floor, and she needed to be back at her desk, loops deactivated, before the goons stepped off the lift. But the illuminated office drew her like a moth to flame, and she allowed the detour to bend her path. She stopped in the open doorway and peeked inside, feeling oddly like an intruder. Jacobs was drooling on his desk. Tyrrin shook her head and tsked.

Across the room, Harrison went stiff. With a wave of his hand, he deactivated his screen and turned to greet Tyrinn with a frown carved from ice. She'd clearly interrupted him. It was an annoyance she could understand, and she gave him her best apologetic smile. It had no effect.

"I believed we were alone," Harrison said. His voice was a velvet threat. "What, if I may ask, are you doing here so late."

The control he exerted over his words was flawless, and his slow, careful diction reinforced Tyrrin's suspicion that Commander Harrison was not what he – or Jacobs – claimed.

She didn't dare break eye contact as she replied, but she fought to keep her body language casual and rid herself of the tension gathering in her shoulders with a rolling shrug. "Working. As usual." Lie. Her life was weird, but even she didn't consider a small warehouse filled with occupied cryopods normal.

Harrison seemed to pick up on the attempted deception, and his face closed even further. Tyrrin suspected whatever he'd been working on before she blundered in was no Starfleet sanctioned. What she wouldn't give for a chance at his computer's hard drive…

His hands clenched at his sides. "Was there a reason for your visit?" Tyrrin took that as her cue to go.

"Just stopping by to say hello," she said, angling toward the door.

Harrison's mask didn't crack. Didn't even chip. "Hello." _Goodbye_.

"See you around."

It'd been a bad idea, but she didn't stop to berate herself as she scampered to the stairs. Her head was too full of frozen faces to hold anything else.

**A/N: ****In defense of this shabby little chapter: it's a bridge between introductory fluff and the real meat of the story. The plot from hereon out will be a lot more focused, and we'll be making definite strides in each chapter. **

**It's ridiculously short, I know, but ya'll stalked off and left poor, lonely DevonF to hold the fort alone. So I don't feel particularly bad. The Supernatural crew cleaned your clock last round, but there is hope this turn. And right now reviews are important, because fanfic is drifting ever further back on my list of priorities. I'm launching an original fiction project in about a week, and I've got 'real life' drama (like everyone else). So... yeah. I'm toying with the idea of putting one or both fics on indefinite hiatus. **

**So please leave a donation in the pretty box below. You'll never know how much good your comments do!**


	4. Revelation

**A/N: Don't own _Star Trek_. Not old enough. Quite.**

Revelation

Tyrrin had to wait for the opportunity, but it arrived eventually.

She needed to know so desperately, the curiosity was tearing her apart. The quality of her work had flagged over the past week, in the seven days since she found the storage room full of frozen souls. It wasn't enough for anyone else to notice, but she caught minute errors she had to go back and fix – little problems she'd never have suffered had she been entirely focused. But those faces…

And the information she needed could only be found on one work station, the one branch of computer memory cordoned off from the central information cloud – Admiral Marcus's personal files. All manner of ugly beasties might be found there. She'd already stepped in a few of the Admiral's messes, and the experience taught her to keep her nose out of places it wasn't welcome. But this wasn't really about her nose.

_Seventy three_.

No, this wasn't really about her at all.

Her chance came when the month changed and the Admiral's system came due for general maintenance and updating. In an office as complex and advanced as Section 31, technology evolved at a rapid pace, and without regular upgrades, basic systems would soon lose all compatibility with new projects and data fields. So no one blinked when she sauntered into the office, checking the task off on her PADD as she went through the Admiral's door. He wasn't even in London at the time. Starfleet business had drawn him back to San Francisco, and he wasn't due back for another four days. Tyrrin didn't need more than four minutes to get what she needed. It was a golden opportunity.

But it was a risk, a big terrible risk with consequences that would echo into all corners of her life, regardless of success or failure.

She assumed the Admiral's chair, spun three times, and settled her hand on the controls. Her fingers belied her inner turmoil. Each stroke was sure, each tap firm. It was almost like she knew what she was doing. She began her work, and in moments she had a perfect loop of footage. Fooling the cameras would be child's play, just as it had been when she crept down to the lowest level and dug out Section 31's darkest secret.

She knew, instinctively, that it was a bad idea. She knew she should not do the thing.

"Don't do it," she murmured, rubbing her fingers against the keys. She could feel the tell-tale signs of Admiral Marcus's typing habits. She read which hand he used to navigate, which finger to select, how quickly he scrolled. It was all there, everything she could ever want or need to know, everything Admiral Marcus was too paranoid to put on the main servers, just ripe for the plucking. It was a terrible idea, of course. Downright suicidal, in fact. Admiral Marcus wasn't a big slap on the wrist kind of guy. He put up with garbage until it was just too much to handle and the scale tipped in favor of lightening the load. If she did this, and he found out…

"Don't do the thing, Tyr," she breathed. The screen filled her eyes with its cool glow. "Don't do the thing. Don't do it."

But there were those bodies – those _people_ – in storage. They weren't on any official record. Admiral Marcus catalogued them as garbage. What, exactly, did that mean?

The security sensor blinked twice, confirming that her image was now on a loop. She was invisible.

Who was she kidding?

She did the thing.

Her world exploded in a series of painless, all-consuming explosions. _Botany Bay_. Cryosleep. Augments. _Khan_. File after file rose before her eyes, each more revolting than the last. And yet, she couldn't stop reading. She gulped the information down like air – heady and necessary and surprisingly physical. She couldn't quite repress the bubble of pleasure that inflated her pride when the files verified her first hypothesis, and she quivered with raw exuberance. And fear. And disgust. And absolute horror.

They discovered seventy five operating cryotubes. Khan was woken, and the number dropped to seventy four. The files made a vague reference to a demonstration just after the Augment monarch's revival, and the number dropped to seventy three. It didn't take a genius to bridge the short gap the records left, and Tyrrin knew with certainty they'd killed one of Khan's people. Marcus had drawn first blood. That did not bode well for Starfleet. Tyrrin didn't know as much about the Eugenics Wars as she should, as she _needed_ to, but she remembered Khan, even all these years after primary school. He was a prince, a dictator, a genius, a warrior, a _killer_.

And Marcus thought him tamed? More the fool he, then.

Historians reported Khan to be almost elemental in his fury, and Tyrrin knew such forces didn't lie down and die just because some bully told them to. Marcus had trapped a hurricane.

She raked a hand through her hair. A laugh tugged free from her belly and bubbled past her lips – a jubilant brush with insanity.

Commander John Harrison. No wonder Jacobs was so uncomfortable. It couldn't be easy, spending every moment in fear for his life. Surely he wasn't stupid enough to think he was responsible for Khan's obedience. No, the monster's pliability stemmed from the cold crew waiting for him below. They were the key to his chains. Jacobs was just a nanny with a gun.

Well, Tyrrin hadn't been wrong about him. Khan Noonien Signh. The best of tyrants. A kitten killer if there ever was one.

She sat back in the chair and let her eyes fall shut. Her lip gravitated between her teeth as she chewed over her thoughts. What was she to do with all this? Something had to be done, that was obvious, but she didn't know _what_. Admiral Marcus was wholly in the wrong, of that she had no doubt. But that didn't automatically put _Khan_ in the right. His victimization didn't change his past, and it didn't change his genes. What was she supposed to do for a king without a crown? What about his crew? Should she free them? Should she hide them from Marcus and sacrifice Khan for the good of his crew? Should she sacrifice the crew for Khan? Could she trust him to just take his people and go? There were no easy answers. Humanity had reason to brand him a war criminal, and Tyrrin wasn't stupid enough to think his nap had improved his mood. It was too much to process. Certainly too much to process in enemy territory.

Assuming her former position, she deactivated the security loop and finished updating the Admiral's system. Each footprint she left in the records washed away as the updates took effect. But if she lingered any longer she could be noticed, and regardless of her decision, she couldn't afford that kind of attention.

She nodded to the secretary on the way out and headed to her next task – in the Pit of Ensigns.

Good. She needed coffee.

.O.O.O.

A good London mist dampened the road home as Tyrrin plodded away from work. It wasn't often she went home. It was the safe haven she turned to in times of storms, her removed sanctuary. She preferred to use her few hours apart from the computers doing something exciting – like clubbing. Sleep came when she allowed it, or when the demand pressed too hard for her to ignore. But her office floor worked well for naps. Her apartment was for other things.

Like deciding whether or not to commit treason. It would be morally justifiable treason, but Tyrrin had no doubt the plots germinating in the back of her mind were treachery incarnate. Her old friend the migraine hummed and throbbed with the turn of her thoughts. The pain feasted on her stress, and Tyrrin wondered if she was shortening her lifespan with all her angst. That would be unfortunate. She needed time for her plan to take root.

She needed time to decide whether or not to act out her plan in the first place.

The door closed behind her with a secure click, and she passed through the cluttered space, dodging easels and poorly-cleaned brushes stained with every color under the sun. Her shelves seemed to sag under the weight with which she'd burdened them. The plastic composite from which they were built could handle thousands of pounds, and although her collection was impressive, it didn't even approach the shelves' weight limit. The shelves cradled hundreds of books – all antiques in the age of computers, but Tyrrin had always nursed a soft spot for history, even after she abandoned it as a profession. It seemed only right to give her private space to the past. An old soul, her mother called her.

But she would never be old.

Tyrrin glanced at the ancient clock hanging in the kitchen. It would be another five hours before visiting hours began. She had time to burn. Her hand wandered along the books' spines, her nails catching in hairline cracks, dust creeping into her cuticles. She really ought to find time to clean. Eventually, she found the stories she was looking for. A pile of books sat under her palm, a motley collection of histories analyzing the Eugenics Wars. She chose one – _The Eugenics Wars: An Introduction _– and took it to her chair. An introduction was just what she needed.

For the next three and a half hours, she soaked in the words. They helped her construct an honest picture of the players she found herself pitted against. Pitted with. But the facts were riddled with bias, painted lurid by the author's opinions and beliefs.

She dropped the book with a faint sense of disgust. It barely acknowledged the Augments as humans. In the author's mind, they were science incarnate – calculations given flesh. But since the Augments didn't consider themselves human either, perhaps it was a fair depiction. She didn't know, but she would soon.

Anyway, it was time to go.

.O.O.O.

The hospital was as merry as it ever was, which was not at all. It was a big trunk full of broken toys. Some could be pasted back together, good as new. Some would be serviceable once more, but the damage would never really fade. And some, well, some would never leave the trunk again.

Tyrrin kept her eyes down and her hands in her pockets as she strode down the halls. All around her families cried; hopeful friends wore stiff smiles; nurses milled about with practiced expediency, the calluses on their hearts thick as armor, hardened by too many wounds in the box of shattered dreams. Tyrrin worked in a secret laboratory that invented new and clever ways to kill people. She'd gone out among the stars and seen some of that killing in person. She was no stranger to horror. But this place, this morose battlefield was far more haunting than any phaser blast. It was the realm of quiet death. The world of unhappy endings.

She reached her destination and stopped. She faced the gleaming chrome door and took a long, slow breath, gathering herself. The door stared back at her blankly. She stuck out her tongue, hoping to offend her reflection. Then she pushed inside.

The room was occupied by a single bed draped in gauzy white sheets. Long white curtains fluttered along the open window. White walls and white floors caught and reflected the light. And sitting in this sterile heaven was one young woman hooked up to more whispering machines than Tyrrin fixed in a week. The girl turned to face the technician as she entered, and her sallow face betrayed the faintest glimmer of surprise.

Tyrrin's bottom lip trembled as she took yet another steadying breath. "Cassandra."

"I never expected to see you here," the woman replied.

Tyrrin moved to the two chairs set next to the bed and dropped her bag in the first. As she sank into the second, she met Cassandra's gaze. "I never expected to be here."

"I thought…" Cassandra paused, hunting for the right words. "You were very clear on your feelings about this place. About… this." She gestured at the technology humming around her. Her eyes gleamed with naked curiosity. "Why are you here?"

"I have a decision to make." Tyrrin had never felt so cold in her life. It was like her body was stone and the city had fallen back into winter. Her voice fell like snow.

"I don't understand." The woman in the bed shifted, causing one of her electronic minders to squeal with disapproval. Judging by her expression, the motion cost her. "What could…" Cassandra stopped, gaze sweeping Tyrrin's face. Understanding dawned in her eyes. "Oh, I see. You want to know what it feels like. You want to know what it feels like to die."

Suddenly there wasn't enough air in the room. Glancing toward the monitors, Tyrrin mumbled, "No, it's fine. I –"

"It's not a problem. Stars know you'll have firsthand experience soon enough." Cassandra frowned and studied her again. "It's already started, hasn't it?" She sighed and sank back on her pillows. Tyrrin finally managed to meet her eyes again as she continued. "We're travelling the same road. I'll give you some landmarks. The pain is first – little zaps of agony along your spine that blossom into the most incredible migraines. I'm sure you're already experiencing those. They'll get worse as you go along. Eventually you'll feel like every nerve's on fire. You'll sit there, burning, and no one'll be able to stop it. Sooner or later your motor responses will begin to fail. You'll get clumsy – dropping things, losing your balance. Forget about threading any needles."

A shuddered wracked her emaciated frame, and Cassandra stopped. Tyrrin waited until the wave of agony had passed and the invalid remembered herself. Her voice came softer. "When your first coma hits, you'll be near the end. You'll wake up with a bunch of concerned faces hovering over you, and you won't remember how you got there. You fall asleep, and no one can wake you up until you just… do."

Silence swallowed the conversation, and the two women sat idle, each trapped in their own fears, too pained to speak. A gust of air from the environmental adapter puffed one long curtain into motion. The fabric dragged across the floor as it settled, disturbing the silence with one long _hush_. At last, Cassandra reclaimed her words.

"They tell me it won't be long now," she said. "Maybe another month. Maybe two." She pleated the pristine blanket resting across her knees, letting the synthetic wool absorb her attention. "I guess that means you-"

Tyrrin surged up from her seat and grabbed her bag as she spun away from the bedside. "I should be going."

"Tyr."

Her name froze her. She stopped at the door, waiting for a blast to knock her off her feet. But all that came was a whisper. "Can you make your decision now?"

A small smile was the best she could offer, but Tyrrin braved a look over her shoulder to grant it, even if the expression shook. "Yes."

Cassandra relaxed into her pillows again. Her smile was much more certain. "I'm glad."

"Goodbye, Cassandra."

"Goodbye, Tyrrin."

The techie left the invalid's room, and the door closed softly on her heels, leaving the pale woman to fade in her bleached nest.

Freeing the techie for a few more months of service outside the trunk of broken toys.

.O.O.O.

The two people Tyrrin least wanted to see were waiting for her when she breezed into the office.

They waited like an artist's rendering of all that was best and worst in man. Khan stood erect, comfortable in his own skin, and not quite tense, but ready for battle at any instant. He barely seemed human at all. Tyrrin couldn't help wondering how she could've misinterpreted the signs so badly. Of course he didn't seem human. In many ways, he wasn't. It was her first time seeing him since she discovered his name, and even though her stomach churned with fear, a spark of excitement kindled there. It was like an old fairy story where names and power and _true_ names were all tangled together. To know a true name was to have power.

She knew his _name_. It was uncannily thrilling.

And then there was Jacobs.

He was sweating so badly Tyrrin could smell the faintest whiff of his body odor as she approached. While he waited, he'd taken one of the visitor chairs in Tyrrin's office, and his posture was one great arch.

Tyrrin kept her eyes away from Khan as she slipped by him, and she didn't bother giving Jacobs her attention. He'd have to earn it.

Jacobs straightened from his slouch, his face bathed in a wash of pure relief.

Oh, stars, he was pathetic.

"Where were you?" he asked. "We've been waiting for an hour."

Tyrrin tossed her bag on her desk, rolling her eyes at the bumbling officer as she stripped off her jacket. "I was out."

Jacobs blinked. "But you never go out."

"Uh," she dropped into her chair and pulled herself closer to the workstation, "clearly I do."

"You live out of your bag," Jacobs said. He just wouldn't let it go. "You sleep on the floor. You only go out when you're with a guy." He seized on the thought. "Were you on a date?"

With a wave at her attire, she asked, "Do I look like I was on a date? There was stuff I had to do at home."

"Home? You have a place? Seriously?"

The little muscle man's demands were annoying now, rude even. She spun around to glare at Jacobs, fighting to ignore Harriso – _Khan_ – where he lingered in the doorway. "Yes. I'm a big girl." Her tone morphed into a whining coo. "But don't worry, honey. Mommy's home now. Do you need your binkie?"

Jacobs flushed scarlet and scrambled to recover his dignity. From his place in the wings, Khan smirked. Smirks weren't supposed to be that scary. They really, really weren't. Tyrrin rubbed a palm over her forehead to dispel the pain as Jacobs wound up for his defense.

"It's important, Tyrrin. We need you."

She blinked up at him through the haze of her headache. Oh, stars, if he only knew. It took tremendous effort not to look at Khan. "That's not really news." Did Jacobs understand that he babysitting a prince? A prince who'd ruled about a quarter of the world? A prince who'd ruled about a quarter of the world and could mulch people with his hands? She forced herself from her reverie. "So? What's so urgent you had to stake out my office while I took my first break in a month?"

Khan raised one slender eyebrow, and Tyrrin tried convincing herself she wasn't affected. "A month?"

She shrugged, stiff and unaccountably awkward. "I don't get out much."

"No kidding." Jacobs snorted.

"We were discussing the reason for this ambush," Tyrrin reminded him. It was _so_ much easier to sass Jacobs. The Kitten Killer always gave her the creeps. Now that she knew _why_, the creeps escalated to outright anxiety.

"Oh, right, Commander Harrison's computer died."

Tyrrin snapped to attention. "What do you mean _it died_?"

"Uh – it made a sound like a ship jumping to warp, and the screen blinked out." Jacobs paused. "It maybe smoked a little, too."

"_Are you serious?_" Tyrrin was out of her seat and halfway down the hall before Jacobs got over his shock at her outburst. As he scrambled after her, Tyrrin marched down the hall, fists swinging at her sides, muttering under her breath about timing, karma, and the evils of low I.Q. Khan kept pace effortlessly and glided along just a step behind her, intentionally speeding Tyrrin that much faster toward his office. Or maybe it was intentional. The man was scary smart.

Tyrrin wasn't used to being in a room with anyone smarter than she was. It would take some getting used to.

"I have lost several good work hours." His voice was decadently ominous.

"And I've lost several good brain cells. Now stop trying to step on my heels and let me do my job."

Or not.

**A/N: Holy... seriously, this is why I whine and complain and try to make ya'll review - because then my muse goes and does THIS. Longest chapter and fastest update yet. And I really didn't mean to, either. It just sank its teeth in and went, "Nope. You're going Trekkie today. Sorry about your butt. You needed better dimples, anyway." **

**My goal for the next chapter is to have a real scene with Khan and Tyrrin. So far there's been this distanced acknowledgement, but their interactions are always way too short, and I need to sit down and have a proper scene. Thoughts?**

**Also...**

**MY CROWN IS RESTORED! I AM QUEEN OF THE ANONS!**

**Why am I updating at midnight? **

**Anon replies:**

**oods: Thank you so much for going against policy and reviewing! I hope this chapter met your standards, and I look forward to writing more. I've never gone for the baddies falling right away, either. I can understand the allure, but at that point the baddies just aren't themselves anymore, and it makes me sad. I find it hilarious that you ended the review defending the fandom. I might have to use that tactic more often. Thanks again for the great review!**

**Guest: Thanks for your review! Well, I hope you check today/tonight! I'm so, so flattered, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story. Thanks again!**

**Morumotto: Thanks for the review! Don't be sad! I updated! See? See? Thanks again!**

**Svay: Thank you very much for the review! I'm glad Khan is still in character, and I'm tickled you like Tyrrin. Thanks again!**


	5. Knave

**Disclaimer: Not old enough to own _Star Trek_.**

Knave

It was a dangerous game, putting strings on a lion and asking it to dance. Tyrrin preferred to think of her plan as a maze, one which she let the predator roam at its own will, guided by subtle nudges and hints from the labyrinth's crafter. She would play Daedalus, and then she would become Icarus, and the sun would melt her wings. But she needed time to set up her maze… and keep Marcus off the scent. If this blow up, it wouldn't be just her face that got blasted. Khan and his crew would be done for if Marcus so much as _suspected_ a coup. Tyrrin had to be very careful. She must think ahead and consider her options. She must study and scrutinize the ramifications and fallout of all potential options. She must –

"You know, seeing as how you run the place, I thought you'd have a bigger office."

She froze on the threshold, jarred from her contemplations by the unexpected voice. As she gathered her shattered thoughts, she gaped at the long limbed woman sprawled in her customary seat. The invader smiled happily, completely relaxed, gleeful in her own naughtiness.

"Long time no see."

Tyrrin's brain finally caught up with the situation. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see you, of course."

It wasn't that this was a bad thing. In the right circumstances it could be a very, very good thing. It could be a happy thing. But the one week she chose to pit herself against Starfleet and go head to head with Admiral Marcus for the sake of a three-hundred-year-old war criminal couldn't qualify as the right circumstances in anyone's book. Of all the wretched timing… "I mean – no, really: what are you doing here?"

The invader frowned and clambered out of the chair. She swaggered up until her nose was inches away from Tyrrin's face, and the invader narrowed her eyes. "When was the last time you ate?"

Tyrrin only allowed a brief pause. "I ate two hours ago."

The invader sniffed her breath, and her frown deepened. "When was the last time you ate something besides chocolate covered espresso beans?"

"Uh…" The pause lasted too long, and Tyrrin felt control over the situation slipping out of her hands.

Though she had triumphed, the invader didn't smile. Rather, she took a step back and stabbed a finger at the chair. "Sit. There. And don't move until I come back."

Force of habit summoned Tyrrin's rebellious side. She wrinkled her nose. "You can't tell me what to do."

"No, but I can tell your commanding officer that you're suffering from extreme stress-related exhaustion, and that he runs the risk of a fatal error in his computer network if he doesn't allow you to take a break. Oh wait," she pressed a finger to her chin, "I already did that."

"You did _what_?" Tyrrin was coming to understand what spontaneous combustion felt like. "I don't _have_ a commanding officer."

"You're employer, then." The invader smiled. She had impeccable teeth. Tyrrin wanted to knock out every single one of them. "Admiral Marcus seemed _almost_ happy to be rid of you for a few weeks. Have you been up to your old tricks again, Tyr?"

"My tricks are never old," she seethed. "And you just can't _do_ things like that, Zaerti!"

The invader, Zaerti, clasped her hands behind her back and beamed. "Apparently I can. I have permission to abduct you for the next two and half weeks. After the close of business hours this evening, you are banned from this office and the Archives above."

Her luck was, officially, atrocious. This was the last thing she needed. Tyrrin rubbed her face. "I can't believe this."

"Believe it. And please sit down before I'm forced to get physical." Zaerti wiggled her eyebrows, and Tyrrin had no doubt _getting physical_ would make her the happiest woman alive.

"Where are we going, and why?"

Zaerti gestured once more to the chair, dipping into a graceful showman's bow. "I'll explain when I get back. Now sit."

Finally, Tyrrin obliged her, falling into the chair with an almighty flop that triggered an even broader smile from Zaerti. "I'll be back in a minute." And then the invader waltzed out the door, calm and cool as a cucumber. Tyrrin cast about for a way to defend herself, something she could use to blackmail Marcus into allowing her to stay, but had nothing. And Zaerti knew she had nothing.

The unconventional minx.

Tyrrin smirked in spite of herself.

"And what could possibly justify such a mischievous expression?"

Instinctively starting at the voice, Tyrrin glanced to her computer as she composed herself. She could see his reflection in the screen. He was, surprisingly, alone. She was alone in the room with possibly the most powerful man in human history. She was tempted to laugh. It was a mad impulse, and she channeled it in a safer direction, but her senseless gaiety seeped into her performance.

She threw her arms in the air and spun around, giving the man full view of her smile. "I confess! Jacobs has gone too far, and I killed him. He put peanut butter in his central processor, and for that sweetly salty crime I've sentenced him to death by spork. I would allow you to plead his case, but – alas! – the sentence has already been carried out." She took a long moment to absorb the look on Khan's face. It was an expression she was familiar with, often worn by those who abhorred sarcasm, but found themselves amused by her antics in spite of themselves. She hadn't expected to see that look there, and she felt a warm glow of pride light her up from within. Such a silly thing. "So sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you."

A grudging smirk pulled at the corner of Khan's mouth, and Tyrrin felt her smile morph into a matching expression of mischief. Of course, she should've realized – the man probably fantasized about Jacobs' death every hour. It must be delightful to hear ideas coming from someone else's brain. "I'm sure I can find a more capable assistant."

Tyrrin snorted and spun away. "I'm sure. Seriously, though, in answer to your question: a friend just crashed back into my life. Apparently she's planning to abduct me. I feel like we should go out to dinner first, but then again, she the only person I know who has half a chance of keeping up with me." She paused. "Maybe one of the two." She allowed a second pause. "Where is Jacobs?"

"In a meeting." Khan's voice was smooth, and Tyrrin couldn't tell if he was lying or not. Maybe just glossing over the truth. If Jacobs really was in a meeting, then it was more than likely he was speaking with Marcus. But why leave Khan unguarded? Unless… It took a concerted effort not to glance at the security cameras. Why hadn't she realized sooner? It wasn't like Khan could do anything when so many cameras were trained on him, with or without his babysitter. This was an opportunity for Marcus to see where Khan _chose_ to go, what interested him, what repulsed him. What he might be planning. Tyrrin prayed her office hadn't been the first he visited.

Zaerti, bless her inconvenient hide, chose that moment to reappear. A tray filled her hands, and she bumped Khan out of the way with her hip. Tyrrin just about died right there, horrified on Khan's behalf (surely no one had treated him so casually before), horrified on her own (he was going to kill them _all_). But the former monarch made no move to retaliate, only squinted at the newcomer, trying to analyze and sort her as he'd attempted to do when he first met Tyrrin.

Should she be so happy she could read his actions?

"I brought you a sandwich," Zaerti declared. "And soup. Soup is healthy. I knew it would be too much to ask for you to actually eat a real salad." She dropped the tray on Tyrrin's workstation, and Tyrrin stared at it dispassionately.

"Of course."

Zaerti looked up as she perched at the edge of Tyrrin's desk, finally paying attention to the man she'd shoved aside. "Well, _hello_." She shot a not-so-covert glance at Tyrrin, and a blush began creeping up her neck. "Is this someone I should know, Tyr?"

"No." She just about choked on the word. She nearly choked on the bite of sandwich she'd just consumed.

Zaerti ignored her and swaggered over to Khan, who observed her with one eyebrow quirked. "Commander Zaerti Carter. A pleasure to meet a friend of Tyrrin's."

Tyrrin leaned back in her chair to wail at the ceiling: "He's not my friend." They both ignored her.

"Commander John Harrison," Khan said. His alias rolled off his tongue much more easily than it did Jacobs'. The man was a superior liar if nothing else. "Likewise, I'm sure."

"I hope you didn't need Tyr for anything," Zaerti said. "I'm stealing her for the next few weeks." Her grin was almost feral. "Quite literally if her attitude doesn't change."

Tyrrin snorted and tossed the sandwich back on the tray. It was tasteless, and she wasn't hungry, anyway. "You seriously think you pluck me from the middle of my own web? You're still an idiot, Zaerti."

Her friend's attention returned fully to her face, and Tyrrin couldn't help noticing how Khan lingered by the doorway, soaking in the information Zaerti kept spitting up. Tyrrin had no doubt she would pay for this later.

"And you're still a freak," Zaerti chimed. "But I don't think I'll have to drag you out by your hair or anything. In fact, I'm sure of it. I can get you to follow along like a good little hacker with just two little words."

Hostage Augments – no two words could trump those.

Zaerti leaned close, and her breath stirred the fine hairs at Tyrrin's temple as she murmured, "War. Games."

Oh. _Oh_, that was _cheating_. She glowered at the taller woman, and Zaerti rocked back on her heels as she folded her arms across her chest, the picture of satisfaction. Tyrrin was surprised the woman didn't purr.

"There's a convention I've been asked to speak at," she continued, withdrawing to a less invasive distance. "I'm sure it will be horribly boring, which is why I want you with me."

Tyrrin cocked her head and adopted a thoughtful expression. "Interesting. 'War games.' Doesn't sound anything like 'convention.' Certainly not two words." She scoffed. "Not even two syllables."

"Fine." Crossing her arms, Zaerti glowered. "I got drunk with some friends. And my friends and I may have pissed off some security crew, and now we're engaged in a duel for the honor of Clan Tech. That's why I _need_ you."

Tyrrin closed her eyes and told herself this was a bad idea. She was very busy at the moment, and there were a number of lives depending on her. Time was of the essence. Doubtless Khan was already formulating his own plan, though she doubted it was as good as hers, and his plotting might very well interfere with hers. But the idea of fresh air was so compelling, and she so desperately needed a good shallow battle of wits and brawn… "I really hate you sometimes."

Zaerti grinned. "I know." She bounded to the door. "We're leaving in five hours. If you aren't packed, I swear, we're stopping at the first kink store we pass, and you're spending the entire trip in pleather and fur." She gave Khan a chipper nod. "Have a good day." And then she was gone.

When the silence Zaerti left in her wake grew uncomfortable, Tyrrin waved toward the door and said, "Go ahead. Laugh." Her arm dropped and her head lolled.

"Why would I laugh?"

"Because this is all more than faintly ridiculous?"

"Oh, I don't know," there was a predatory purr in his voice, "getting above ground might be good for you."

So there it was. He wanted her out of the way so he could execute his own designs. This was a golden opportunity to distance the greatest obstacle between him and his crew – that obstacle being Tyrrin and her advanced system knowledge. Doubtless the genetically engineered genius could already give the officers a few lessons in the finer points of hacking. His brilliance was incomparable aside from her own. Tyrrin wrestled back her disappointment and reminded herself of the cameras. This was good for her, too. She didn't need Khan to like her to achieve her goals. In fact, it was probably best if he didn't like her at all. Admiral Marcus would be ten times more suspicious if she suddenly got chummy with his pet maniac.

"Yeah." She watched her fingers dance over the keyboard as she punched in a simple memo for the Admiral's benefit. She hit send. "It might." Rising from her seat, she grabbed her coat from the back of the chair and wriggled into it, wishing it fit her better as Khan watched with icy detachment. There wasn't even a spark of interest. Maybe if she had Zaerti's uninhibited libido…

"I guess I'll see you around."

He barely acknowledged her with a nod, but she felt his eyes on her back all the way down the hall. They drilled into her skull as she waited for the lift, and she could swear they were still burning her as the door slipped shut behind her.

With friends like this, who needed enemies?

**A/N: Whoa... the amount of Hunter butt ya'll kicked... Just... whoa... It took a while to find the opportunity to write this, but when I did I got almost the entire chapter out in one sitting. I still feel pretty motivated. **

**Let's make a deal: If I get 5 reviews by the time I get up tomorrow morning, I'll update by the end of tomorrow night. At the very latest. I like a good dare. Do you dare me?**

**Out of curiosity, whatcha think of Zaerti?**

**Anon replies:**

**Kat: Thank you, thank you! I have more fun writing bad guys as bad guys, so I'm happy you're enjoying him that way. I always saw the connections between this Khan and the historical reference, too. And I liked Khan's nickname in the original series: the best of tyrants. I think that describes him to a 't'. Hope you're still around and reading, and thanks again for the lovely review!**

**Morumotto: Hello again! Don't worry, if either story gets ditched, it won't be this one, because you guys are awesome and Khan is great fun to write. So happy you're emotionally invested! I look forward to tossing the feels at you. Thanks for your review!**


	6. Games

**Disclaimer: Really? Again. I'm only, like, one day older. Still don't own _Star Trek_.**

Games

The halls were quiet. Khan should have been grateful for the silence – he _was_ grateful – but it seemed impossible that one irritating technical engineer could still cause him so much frustration from halfway across the globe. Before she left, Tyrrin Regent had changed every passcode in the system. All his long hours nosing through backdoors and loopholes in her firewalls – wasted. For a brief instant, he'd clutched a hope that he could make his move in her absence and free his family from their cryo sleep. He'd almost found them. He'd combed through all the scraps of data that fell through even the most secure networks, and he'd _almost figured it out_.

Until Tyrrin Regent sent him back to square one. And now, as if to celebrate, she had embarked on a long vacation with her equally irritating colleague.

He tore his eyes from the screen and rolled his face from the monitor in disgust. He wouldn't be besting Miss Regent. Not tonight.

Another shackle added to his chains. His hands rose of their own accord to tangle in the frustratingly short hair Marcus ordered cut to meet the demands of John Harrison's identity. It repelled him, this lie he was forced to eat, speak, breathe, wear. As if a name could tame the dragon who once ruled a quarter of the world.

The question now became: how best to proceed? Savage instinct called for a vengeance, sweet and slow, claimed in blood and bone and the sticky secrets of man's anatomy pulled from the cavern of his chest. And there would be a time for that. Khan fought for that moment almost as much as he fought for his people. The hours of the ensigns who worshiped the girl who fixed their computers, the fool who dogged his every step, the doctors in their long white coats, and the uniformed officers at their desks – all were numbered. Each twitch of the clock brought their deaths an inch closer, and Khan closed his eyes as his fantasies stirred a wild pleasure deep in his stomach.

Thanks to his advanced genetics, Khan might have gone days more without feeling hunger, but his weak little guard needed nourishment no less than three times a day lest his mood sour from thoughtless hostility to active antagonism. As if Khan needed any reminders of Lieutenant Jacobs' inferiority.

Even as he considered the waste of space, Jacobs' stomach growled. The man rose, and Khan listened distractedly to the squeak of his chair. This would mean a pause while Jacobs 'accompanied' him to the mess. He pressed his hands flat against his desk and allowed himself a brief moment of frustration. All the work he could do without these interruptions…

"Let's go," said Jacobs.

"The next time you _meet_ with Admiral Marcus," Khan said, "you might inform him that these _breaks_ reduce my overall performance. They break my concentration and waste valuable time…"

"Tell him yourself," Jacobs said, unimpressed. "He already knows. This isn't for you. It isn't even for me. This is for the show. You know? That little lie that you're _normal_? That you're a human being with _needs_ and a _soul_?"

For all his bravado, Khan knew Jacobs feared him. With a sharply angled smirk, he peered over his shoulder and allowed some of the pleasure he took in imagining the man's death seep into his eyes. "The most difficult task of all."

Jacobs tried to repress his shudder, but Khan saw his hand shiver and twitch toward the stun weapon at his belt. It carried a charge powerful enough to give Khan… significant pause. It hurt, of course, and the burst of energy was strong enough to scramble his senses for several minutes. Marcus threatened that, should Khan validate use of the weapon, he'd also enjoy the dubious pleasure of watching Jacobs kill another of his crew members. Though intimidating Jacobs was as easy as breathing, it was a game he was not willing to play. Not until he had solidified his position, at any rate.

He stood without any further threat, and the two men wound their way to the higher – less secure – levels of the complex.

Quest as the rest of Section 31 was, the mess hall more than compensated for any lack of noise. Technically, everyone was still at work, and they were stopping by for water, or coffee, or their lunch breaks. And while that was true in many cases, by and large it was a farce. More than one ensign intentionally sabotaged his or her work station to legitimately excuse themselves from their duties. A motley handful of technicians borrowed from other departments or press ganged from their offices worked to service faulty equipment in Regent's absence, but they worked neither so efficiently nor so well. It was the perfect way to earn a few extra hours away from the desk.

And the reason for such rampant truancy? The developmentally stunted monkeys had rigged a giant viewscreen in the mess, and whenever new footage came in of their beloved queen, they all found some excuse to shirk their work and descend en masse on the communal eatery.

Khan could hear the racked three halls away. He winced away from the noise as a gleeful shout rose in a mighty crescendo and reverberated down the sterile corridor. Beside him, Jacobs smiled.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

Khan didn't bother to answer. The question was rhetorical at best.

"You just can't stand to see anyone else having fun, can you?"

They'd reached the mess, and Khan didn't mask his sneer. The door opened, and his customary mask of ice grew back over his rage.

Inside, the room was a surging mass of humanity. The lights had been dimmed to best showcase the viewscreen's image, and all eyes were riveted to the scenes it depicted.

As far as Khan was aware, the 'war games' had started the evening before. Because of the time difference, it was the middle of the day in the American desert, where the two factions were facing off, and the images on screen were incongruous with the time of day in London above. That little fact had led to a surprising amount of voluntary overtime. Khan watched the audience, Starfleet's best and brightest, and felt nothing but derision. Truly, was this all mankind had accomplished in three hundred years?

A young female ensign spotted Jacobs and hurried over, her eyes bright and eager to share the latest story. "Have you been keeping up on your PADD?"

"No." Jacobs stepped forward to intercept her, either to keep her away from Khan or to receive her news all the faster, Khan couldn't say. "Fill me in. What's going on?"

"Well," the woman's eyes glowed, "Clan Tech and the Red Shirts have settled in their bases, and Tyrrin already managed to hack the leader board."

"She hacked it?" Jacobs shook his head. "Isn't that cheating?"

"Oh, no. She didn't break any rules. They're allowed to do anything they want so long as no one gets hurt and they don't smuggle in outside resources. Besides, she didn't break it. She just made it so no one can see which team fallen players belong to. It's just a blind tally now." She leaned in, a conspiratorial smile on her face. "The Red Shirts keep joking about the nerds. They say the nerds can turn the lights on and off, but since they're in those empty warehouses in the desert, there isn't a lot they can hack. I think they're overconfident."

From what he knew of Tyrrin Regent, Khan was inclined to agree with the ensign.

Jacobs peered up at the screen, where footage from dozens of hovering cameras appeared in neat boxes. Section 31 wasn't the only Starfleet operation with stakes in the game. Apparently, the games were being broadcast to any stations not restricted to radio silence. The games' organizers were careful to provide adequate recording devices. "Who took what from the ammo dump?"

"The Red Shirts took a lot of basic assault equipment and all the grenades. Clan Tech all have side arms, and then they have three sniper rifles, and most of the melee weapons." The woman paused to smile. "We're taking bets."

Just then, a man close to the screen yelled, "The Red Shirts are moving!" and the entire room surged forward. Khan found himself, almost against his will, interested. The outdoor cameras revealed ten of the thirty Red Shirt team jogging across the open desert, moving efficiently over the sand as they assumed a standard attack formation. It was night at the battlefield, and the indoor cameras at both bases were illuminated with shadowy night vision. It was difficult to see much of anything, but there appeared to be very little movement at either base. These were the hours for sleep.

The Red Shirts were nearing Clan Tech headquarters. Nervous whispers crackled over the room as the audience watched in wide-eyed anticipation. The view from the camera tracking the approaching troop took the center of the screen, and all other angles were forced to the screen's edges. Khan imagined himself in the desert with these children and their games. He could show them how the game was played.

The Red Shirts were only a hundred yards away from Clan Tech headquarters, and there was no sign that Tyrrin and her compatriots were aware of their presence. All ten Red Shirts fetched a pair of flash grenades from their packs. Khan eyed the training weapons with suspicion. Explosions were grand to see, but they were rarely the most effect method of assassination. If anything went wrong, the strike team would lose all hope of surprise. But they didn't need to kill their enemies. They only had to trip the specialized sensors each player wore on a special harness around their torso. Once the sensor recorded an energy strike, or a physical impact of significant force, the player would be automatically disqualified and beamed from the arena. If their strike was successful, they could end the games here and now.

They triggered the grenades and lobbed them through the abandoned warehouse's shattered windows. A moment later, a flash bright enough to make nearly everyone in the audience wince away from the screen lit the building from the inside. The tally board, tucked in one corner of the screen showed no change. Everyone held their breath. And then…

Twenty.

The Red Shirts claimed twenty Techs in their opening gambit. Khan was simultaneously pleased by Tyrrin's loss, and frustrated by the fact that such an incompetent leader could best him in anything. But he soothed his ego with the understanding that this technology was new to him, and she'd had her entire life to master it. Apparently, her skills were limited to computers.

The Red Shirts gave a mighty cheered and turned to retreat, mission accomplished. Ensigns moaned and grumbled. The security teams bumped shoulders and grinned. A few began searching their pockets for money they owed.

And then three Red Shirts dropped, struck simultaneously from three different shooters.

The sniper rifles – the little ensign had mentioned Clan Tech took three.

The Red Shirts suffered several moments of panicked confusion, and three more dropped. The remaining four darted back toward the cleansed warehouse, but twelve soldiers rose from the sand, grains pouring from their shoulders like water, to intercept them. The remaining four dropped in seconds. One Clan Tech warrior fell – no one Khan recognized – and all eleven defeated competitors vanished in a swirl of gold.

Confused murmurs swallowed the ensign's cheers, and suddenly everyone had an opinion. Khan ran the numbers in his head. He smiled as Tyrrin and Zaerti's plan came together in his mind.

Several side screens flickered, revealing new scenes, most notably the Red Shirts' base, where Zaerti was tapping a camera. The man running the viewscreen quickly swapped out the battlefield for Zaerti's face. She was grinning, dirt in her hair and dust caked in every crevice, but her glee was infectious, and soon half the mess was smiling again.

"Hello, darlings!" she said. "I'm so sorry for any anxiety you may have suffered on our account, but it came to our attention that the Red Shirts hacked the live feed and were using it to plan their assault. So we returned the favor. You. Got. Hacked. Tyrrin Dearest is putting up the footage we recorded on a camera we 'broke' yesterday. Enjoy!"

The room held its breath as Zaerti disappeared, and the dim interior of the Red Shirt base appeared. One man stood guard – a PADD with the live feed in his hand – and at his feet, the other nineteen competitors caught a few hours' sleep. They were lined up like the dead, trussed in blankets they would have difficulty escaping in a sudden fight. Overconfident, indeed. Behind the watchman, three shadows appeared in the windows. Silently, they dropped into the room. The watchman turned. Maybe he heard them. Maybe he could feel that he was being watched. Whatever the reason, he turned away again, and six more shadows dropped in. The intruders crept in, three by three, until the last two slipped in, and the other half of Clan Tech's forces were accounted for. In the gloom, it was difficult to see, but Khan spotted the crew ringing the sleeping Red Shirts.

And then they heard Tyrrin's voice, "Mark."

Clan Tech opened fire. Tyrrin stood next to Zaerti across the circle, where the brilliant flashes of weapons discharge illuminated their faces in rapid bursts. They were positively gleeful. Their aim was true, and in seconds the twenty resting members of the Red Shirts were decimated.

They had timed it, Khan realized, to play on the other team's overconfidence. They knew the Red Shirts hacked the feed, and they allowed them to spy. Then they played with the ledger board, stealing valuable information from their opponents. But armed as they were with the live images, the Red Shirts hadn't realized the danger. While they reveled in their victory and dropped their guard, they were in fact celebrating a failed strike on an empty base and the simultaneous massacre of their own team.

It was crafty. It was efficient. It was clever. It was…

Khan smirked.

… rather savage.

**A/N: Sweet mother of cheese, you guys are awesome. I was all, "I want a couple cookies." And you went, "Does a specialty cake with dragons and buttercream icing work?" I am very impressed, and grateful, for your response. That said...**

**I didn't take very long to revise this chapter, which means it's probably pretty clunky, but I hope it still works for you all. Also, I was really toying with the idea of getting into the games and giving a lot of play-by-play from Tyrrin's POV, but I came to the decision that it wasn't the right way to go. This escapade has a major purpose (as you will learn in the next chapter) for the overall plot, so it was necessary as a part of the story, but I think just diving in and going nuts with the silliness was a bad idea. Self serving and such. So, yeah. That's why this is so short. I hope you don't mind. **

**Next chapter includes bargaining and the first tentative peeks at Tyrrin's back story that you've all been clamoring for.**

**Thanks again!**

**Anon Replies:**

**Kat: Thanks for your review! Yeah, they are DEFINITELY headed for a showdown (or several). Has Tyrrin bitten off more than she can chew? Thanks again!**


	7. Favor

**Disclaimer: Me no own and you no sue.**

Favor

The music poured in her ears and echoed inside her chest, keeping beat with her heart's syncopated flutter. Each note, packed with energy, reverberated into her extremities, and the excitement crawled up her throat, looking for release. She was so high on the sound she could just let go and scream. It would feel wonderful.

But she didn't. Rather, she sat back in her chair and watched Zaerti practically tango back from the bar. The grudge match was won, the convention survived, and now it was time for all the good little techies to go home. Just not quite yet. They had one last night to celebrate before climbing back into their respective holes.

Zaerti dropped into the seat beside her without ceremony. Her electric blue Romulan ale sloshed over the side and dripped over her fingers. "Stop looking so gloomy," she said, setting Tyrrin's drink on the table. She ducked to lick the alcohol from her fingers. "I need to get you drunk, woman."

"I'm not gloomy," Tyrrin said. "I'm thinking."

Zaerti scoffed. "Same differences. Why do you think I stole you from that crumby pit in London?"

Tyrrin ignored her drink in favor of the conversation. She didn't feel ready to let go so far. The music was intoxicating enough, and she wasn't sure she wanted to lose her last measure of control. "Yeah, about that – how come you observe perfect radio silence for three and a half years, and then decide to draft me for your little gang war? I'm getting mixed signals."

"Oh, honey," Zaerti said as she surfaced from her glass, "believe me, when I mean to give signals, you'll know."

"Stop dodging the question."

"I'm not!"

"Bull."

"Fine." The young commander shook the short braids from her face and swiped the moisture from her lips with the back of her hand. Her eyes hardened, but not the way Khan's did. She was focused and annoyed, but there was no hate in there. The intensity was from moetion exposed rather than repressed. Tyrrin had no fear of any repercussions from Zaerti's anger. She was a little worried about what might come out of her mouth, though.

Zaerti continued. "The doctors all side five years. At best. And we both know you don't take care of yourself."

"So – dragging me out to the desert and then bar hopping is _your_ idea of taking care of me?"

"It's my idea of having a good time, something else you're patently bad at."

The music high was wearing off, and Tyrrin found herself wondering why she'd launched this line of inquiry. It was leading her back to old doors best left sealed.

"I told you all I didn't need anything. Going underground, moving to London, everything I've done since… I wanted, I chose it. I've never given any indication that I was unhappy."

"You didn't _have_ to!" Zaerti shouted. A few bar-goers glanced over curiously at the woman's outburst, but the bass was pumping, and people were laughing, and in a moment the few who'd noticed the disturbance forgot about it, glancing away to leave the two women in peace. The brief attention didn't phase Zaerti in her fit of passion. The words kept tumbling out. "And this isn't about you, anyway." Too many words. Zaerti snapped her mouth shut and drew a deep breath that flared her nostrils. Some of those thoughts weren't supposed to be shared. She took refuge in her drink, and Tyrrin's eyebrows inched up.

"Uh. I think it kind of is."

Zaerti's glass met the table with enough force to rattle the ice. "I'm talking about me." She glowered at Tyrrin, embarrassed by her own revelation, and for the first time in a long while, Tyrrin experienced an uncomfortable peek behind her friend's vivacious mask. While the barriers were down, Zaerti rushed to continue. If she couldn't go back, she might as well press on – Tyrrin could understand the sentiment. "We all failed you, but you never would've been on that ship in the first place if it weren't for me."

Tyrrin's prickly urge to nettle her friend faded away, and dispassion grew to replace it. "You can't blame yourself for Alistair. That wasn't your fault."

"Of course it was my fault. What are you talking about? I looked at the two of you and I thought to myself, 'She's clever, and he thinks he is. Besides, think of all the pretty babies they'll make.' So, yeah, definitely my fault. And now I get to make it up to you."

Tyrrin tried to understand how Zaerti's words made her feel, but all she could feel was tired – beyond bone tired, the sort of somnolence that slowed her very soul. All these years, fighting against, well, _everything_ – they had taken their toll. All she could do was smile, and the expression didn't even reach her eyes. So Zaerti blamed herself. Let her atone. Let Zaerti drag her through every dive on the western seaboard and push her to act like she had before Alistair and the monster aboard the _Argonaut_.

"You don't have to."

"I _want_ to." Zaerti leaned close, and Tyrrin understood the solemn intent in her eyes. This really wasn't about her. It was about closure for Zaerti so she could bring this chapter of her life to a close, so she could proceed with a clean conscience after Tyrrin died. After all the years of friendship between them, Tyrrin knew it was the least she could do for her old shipmate.

Besides, was having a good time and damning the consequences really so bad?

She smiled again, and this time she put more effort into it.

Zaerti doubted the expression for a moment, and she let her face fall into a vulnerable frown as she searched Tyrrin's eyes. Tyrrin didn't let her look too close. She picked up her neglected drink and took a dangerously deep gulp. It burned like liquid fire, and she grimaced in pleasure. She could let the alcohol burn it all away – all the fears, frustrations, plans, and regrets – just for one night. For the sake of a friend.

When she looked up again, Zaerti had a grin cracking her face. She'd bought the act. All was as it should be. She might even enjoy this farce. Tyrrin sank into the role as the warmth of the alcohol melted her inhibitions.

"Won't Emily be jealous?" she asked. "You're out drinking and carousing with another woman, after all."

Blushing, Zaerti glanced down at the ale in her hand, overcome by an uncharacteristic wave of embarrassment. "It was her idea, actually," she said, softly as she could without letting the music drown her out.

It wasn't hard to smile. "Good woman you've got there."

Zaerti's face was soft. "I know."

"Now,now," Tyrrin chided, "don't go getting all mushy on me. You're supposed to be raising doubts about your character with _me_, remember?"

The Romulan ale disappeared in one long drink, and Zaerti pulled away from the glass with a vague naughtiness hazing her eyes. "How could I forget?" She abandoned her empty glass and seized Tyrrin's hand. Tyrrin elected to take one more quick sip before Zaerti hauled her away from the table towards the smoky back corner of the bar.

Long low couches clustered around short tables, filled with party-goers in various stages of intoxication. On the tables stood an array of old hookahs. Coals gleamed at their crowns, sparking as smokers tapped them down with short metal tongs. The long mouthpieces curled around like a nest of snakes. Smoke rose in slow fat curls from open mouths. One man sat alone on his couch with only a small, apparently disinterested alien for company. The man blew smoke rings in regular puffs, and Tyrrin watched with fascination as the stretched and faded in their journey through the air. Zaerti led her to the stranger and stopped by his couch.

"Mind if we join you?" she asked.

He started and peered up at them like he couldn't quite believe he was actually being addressed. He wasn't bad looking at all, but he was older than many of the people in the bar, and less exotic than most. It was unlikely he was often greeted by strange young women looking to share a hookah with him. But he recovered himself admirably and quickly scooted to the side, nearly dislodging his companion.

"Yes! I mean – no! No, I don't mind. Sit down, by all means!"

Tyrrin took the spot beside him as Zaerti coyly snatched the business end of the pipe and got busy filling her lungs. "Nice accent," Tyrrin said. "Scottish?"

"Aye." He took a quick gulp from whatever he was drinking, and Tyrrin imagined she could hear his heart flutter as he screwed his courage to the sticking point. "Ever been?"

"No," she confessed. "I do work in London, though."

The man shook his head. "Can't compare. Big ugly city like that – nah. You don't know the spirit of the island until you've been to the moors and dipped your feet in a bog."

Zaerti released her mouthful of smoke in a quick jet. "Sounds messy."

"It's real," the man corrected. "It's basic. Not something I'd fancy doing every day, mind, but how can you control the universe if you don't even know what it _is_? I've been to a lot of planets, and they're all about dirt, let me tell you. Some have find dirt, some have rough dirt, some have dirt so wet you might think it's mud. But that's what a place is built on. You've gotta give it its due."

Zaerti snickered. "Are we really having a philosophical discussion about mud?"

The man shrugged, a little defensive. A little drunk, too, Tyrrin thought. "Maybe."

"Ignore her," Tyrrin said. "She thinks she's smart when she drinks."

"I am smart when I drink. And you can't ignore me. Come here, Tyr – I want to try something."

She'd only just turned when Zaerti grabbed her jaw. Zaerti held her chin in a firm grip, and Tyrrin struggled to remain still as the music began to move in her veins again, bursting to dance, to move – to grab life fiercely and bid adieu to such flaccid passivity as _sitting_. Maintaining eye contact, Zaerti turned her face away and lifted the mouthpiece to her lips. Bubbles giggled in the hookah's belly, and the smoke swirled. Once her lungs were full, Zaerti pulled away from the ancient machine and set the long stem by her side. She drew close. Tyrrin opened her mouth. With their lips mere centimeters apart, Zaerti let the smoke escape in a steady stream that poured directly from her mouth to Tyrrin's. Her breath carried the smoke, and Tyrrin drew it in with a deep breath.

The Scotsman made an interesting noise halfway between a whistle and a strangulated gurgle. "Holy…"

Zaerti pulled away, utterly smug.

"Mm." Some of Zaerti's wickedness must've been caught in the smoke, because Tyrrin felt the urge to misbehave stretching awake in her belly. Rebellion didn't seem like quite enough. Under Marcus, she only dared push the envelope so far, but with Zaerti every rule could be bent. It was high time she had a little fun. She peeked over her shoulder at their couch-mate, and without looking back to Zaerti, she held out her hand. Her friend dropped the long hookah stem into her palm.

She wasn't Zaerti. She didn't pin the man with her eyes as she took a drag, choosing instead to enjoy the leaping bubbles as she inhaled. Then her breath slowed, and the bubbles died. She turned to the man and caught his face between her palms. His jaw fell open more from shock than an intended action, and Tyrrin leaned close enough that her lips briefly brushed against his as she expelled the smoke from her lungs. He was a little too surprised to execute the move as well as she had with Zaerti, but he did take a long breath, like he wanted to pull her closer by simply breathing, and most of the smoke followed the pull down his throat. She felt Zaerti lean around her, and she saw the unmistakable gleam of a recorder from the corner of her eye. But she wanted to be bad, and it was okay if her last friend wanted evidence. It wasn't a bad way to be remembered.

Lungs empty, Tyrrin pulled away, and the Scotsman sat back, dazzled, his eyes glazed over with the faintest sheen of lust. Tyrrin was rather proud of herself, all in all. She didn't have Zaerti's experience, but she could match her for enthusiasm any day of the week.

That little experiment set the tone for the evening. There were more drinks, and more smoke, and Tyrrin shared her breath with more than one willing accomplice as bar-goers around them began to pick up on the game. Zaerti took more discrete shots of Tyrrin enjoying herself, and she began posing for them, leading any future viewers to believe more was or would be happening than had in fact happened. If she was going to die, at least she could live in infamy.

The Scotsman, as it happened, was actually named Scotty, which was by far the funniest and most memorable discovery of the evening. Tyrrin also discovered which men in the bar had sweaty hands, and which would go for gold if she let them. She didn't, but they tried anyway. One genius tried turning the smoke-kiss into something a bit more… European. She bit his tongue and clung on for a full minute before she let go, and the poor man scrambled away clutching his mouth. She sat back, laughed, and had another drink to get rid of the taste.

And then her comm. sang.

Befuddled, annoyed, and more than a little drunk, she flipped it open to hear Jacobs' dulcet tones reverberating _just for her_ from the other side of the flipping planet.

"Tyrrin? I had a question."

"I think you've got this wrong," she giggled. "I'm supposed to drunk-comm. _you_."

"You're drunk?" Suddenly he sounded a lot more interested.

It was a fact, and Tyrrin wasn't willing to deny it. "A bit."

"Wow. You really are drunk."

"I just said that, didn't I?"

"Yeah, I guess. Hey, this can wait. Have fun."

"Of course it can wait," Tyrrin said, struggling not to slur her consonants. "I'll be back in, what? A day? Less? I'm not sure what time it is anymore…"

"It can wait."

"Sure thing."

Jacobs' paused, and Tyrrin was just about to hang up when he asked, "Tyrrin?"

"Yeeaaa-ah?"

"Have you kissed anyone?"

"Oh, yeah. Lots of anyones."

Another beat of silence. "Did you get any pictures?"

"No." Her answer was clipped, and she let Jacobs wallow in his pervy disappointment for a moment or two before she bothered to continue. "But Zaerti did." Then she flipped the comm. closed and settled into a pleasant haze of satisfaction.

.O.O.O.

All nights, even the very best, had to end. And so Tyrrin found herself, some hours later, stumbling into her apartment on the other side of the world, fresh off the shuttle, armed with vintage sun glasses a very heavy duffle bag, and one annoyingly un-hung-over Zaerti.

"That was a great night," Zaerti said, throwing herself on the couch and stretching like a cat as Tyrrin returned her assorted crap to its rightful places.

"It was. And now it's a sucky morning."

"Don't be so dramatic."

"Don't be so loud."

As the alcohol slowly burned out of her system, Tyrrin was forced to face the reality of her situation once more. She was in an impossible spot. She planned to betray Starfleet. She planned to assist in the escape of a three hundred year old war criminal. She planned to outsmart her own computer systems.

She was out of her mind.

And she needed help.

Her eyes wandered past the forest of veiled easels and bookshelves until they found the lanky officer reclining on her sofa. Zaerti caught her eyes as they fixed on her, and she quirked an inquisitive brow. Tyrrin hesitated. Here, in her friend's apartment, fresh from a night on the town half a world away, Zaerti looked so relaxed. She'd just cleared the air between them, and Tyrrin had indulged herself for her old friend's benefit – so she could _move on_.

But she had no other options. And she knew Zaerti would do it if she asked.

Smelling the tension, Zaerti propped herself up on her elbows. "What's up?"

One more moment of hesitation, an acknowledgement that she was crossing a line in their relationship by asking for such a favor, and Tyrrin went for it. "I need your help with something."

Instantly, Zaerti was all attention. She swung her feet to the floor. "Anything."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. What's this about?"

"It's safer if you didn't know."

"For you?"

"For everyone."

Zaerti didn't even bat an eyelash at Tyrrin's verbal dodges, and she clung to her resolution. "What do you need me to do?"

Tyrrin took a deep breath. "I need you to hack Section Thirty-One."

**A/N: So... some fluff... sorta. Ish. Not really. This all has meaning/weight later in the story. I promise. The smoke-trading thing is an actual trick I've seen friends do. It's possibly the sexiest thing I've ever witnessed, and it kind of epitomized Zaerti's character for me. **

**Apologies for the wait, but I'm afraid I've been inevitably detained. I moved over a hundred miles away, got a new job, and have been trying to train/put crap away/find my feet/get internet for the past week or so. It was all quite sudden. And I feel emotionally dizzy, so writing this was a great break. It just... took longer than usual. It's also VERY lightly edited (as in - not at all), so apologies for errors/style flaws. On a completely unrelated note - ya'll are kicking Hunter BUTT. **

**THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR REVIEWS! It's really great to hear back from everyone, and I can't tell you what it does for my muse. **

**Anon replies:**

**Kat: Thanks for the review! Both of them, actually! Crushing might be a strong term at this point, but I think there is maybe some warming interest sparking in the ocean of his distant disdain. Thanks for the compliments! I'm working really hard to think Khan through before I write him each time, and it's all a tricky balance between Into Darkness Khan and the original series Khan, because at this point he's a bit of both. I'm always happy to get your feedback, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!**


	8. Hack

**Disclaimer: N-yope. Don't own _Star Trek_. Sad day.**

Hack

The ice was his best and only defense. It restrained his the burning rage Admiral Marcus had kindled, and it repressed his true hatred of the Admiral's _Starfleet_ and everything it stood for. If he was happy, if he was angry, if he was bored – the mask was frozen in one neutrally cool expression. He'd mastered it as a boy, willing his emotions back when they compromised his performance. It was a familiar friend, though it had been many, _many_ years since he'd been forced to rely so heavily on it. The mask required constant maintenance. Even the slightest fissure might compromise his plans and put his crew at risk. Each moment was a struggle to rebuild the ice as his raw emotions melted it from within.

He knew it intimidated everyone with the misfortune of working with him, and thus far it had served as a tremendous shield for rebuffing any and all unnecessary interaction. He had no desire to make friends. And he had no time to waste pretending to. It worked perfectly – save for two infuriatingly courageous females. First Tyrrin Regent. Now – Commander Zaerti Carter.

The young Commander had escaped her responsibilities for another day, and when Tyrrin Regent stumbled back into her office, clearly battling the consequences of a lively night out, Zaerti Carter was at her side. In the girls' time away, Khan had accomplished nothing, and he felt irritation prickle along the inside of his skin as the Commander spun her friend about in her chair, laughing as the girl turned green.

To be bested by such children…

Perhaps it was time to rethink his plan of attack. Until now, he'd sought to best the system. Could he be struggling with the wrong enemy? Perhaps, rather than defeating the system, he should work to conquer the woman who built it.

Jacobs was, as ever, at his side, and he went immediately over to Miss Regent, shooting round after round of questions – some related to technical difficulties over her absence, some far more personal. The man had no tact and all the grace of a footless dancer, and Khan repressed his natural urge to sneer. Before he slept, several centuries ago, when he was a prince over such creatures, he'd been fond of the company of women. He found their obvious devotion and unadulterated adoration charming. Winning a woman was a rewarding experience, and it never failed to rebuild his confidence. Over time, he became adept at the skills of wooing, and Jacobs' clumsy friendship with the female technician was grating. It was utterly tasteless and crude.

Khan watched as Zaerti detached herself from her friend's side and wandered away to another computer on the other side of the office's glass wall. From her vantage point, she could keep an eye on Tyrrin Regent, and Khan watched for several minutes as the Commander interrupted her typing time and again to peek across the room where Tyrrin was showing images from a personal recorder to Jacobs. Carter's manner was unmistakably maternal, an odd sentiment from a woman who had only just been flirting with the younger girl, but there was no mistaking the naked concern in her eyes as she peered at her friend.

In another few hours, Commander Zaerti Carter would be leaving Section Thirty-One and returning to her post on the American west coast. Her work at Starfleet headquarters could only be shirked for so long, it seemed, and her superiors were finally summoning her home. It was also possible Marcus had finally tired of her distracting influence on his head of technology. He may well have personally seen to her recall. Either way, she would not be around to protect her dear little friend. Tyrrin Regent would be alone with weak fools like Jacobs for protection, and clearly Commander Carter was concerned. Perhaps she feared another would steal an individual for whom she felt a degree of attraction. Or maybe the two had quarreled, though their earlier interaction seemed to negate that possibility. But it hardly mattered why Commander Carter was vulnerable. It only mattered that she _was_. Her concern was a double blessing. If he was careful, he could learn what had roused the woman's fears, thereby acquiring valuable information regarding Tyrrin Regent's weaknesses. If he was lucky, he might even convince Zaerti Carter that _he_ could protect her friend in her absence, and this would give him a window through which to maneuver himself closer to Section Thirty-One's most devious member of staff.

Protecting Tyrrin Regent was the last thing on his mind. But there was no need for Carter to know that.

All his plan required was a touch of charm.

Khan slowly crossed out of the room, careful not to draw attention to himself, and stopped when he was several feet away from Commander Carter at her terminal. For another minute, he allowed her to grow accustomed to his presence, and then he initiated a conversation.

"You seem very keen on Miss Regent's well-being."

To his surprise, she didn't hesitate to answer. It was almost like she'd been expecting his question. "I worry about her," Zaerti said, glancing sidelong at Tyrrin through the glass. "Constantly."

Ah. And there it was. So she really was concerned. Khan was pleased that his perceptions had not been too terribly dulled by his tenure underground. Now he had the opportunity he needed. It only took one word to open the door: "Why?" Then he stood back and waited for the woman to walk through.

"Because she's kinda messed up, and it's kinda my fault." Khan almost physically recoiled from her answer. Zaerti took in his disbelieving expression with a smirk. "Yeah, I know. The Little Queen would never admit it, but she's let herself slip. You should've seen her at her prime." She shook her head. "She was something else."

He had little respect for any who allowed themselves to be broken, but he needed to understand Miss Regent if he was to hold any hope of rescuing his people. Whether Marcus realized it or not, the girl was the single greatest obstacle in Khan's path. He couldn't grapple with a problem he did not entirely understand. That invited room for error, and error was something he simply could not allow. Not now.

"What happened?" he asked. Zaerti tossed one of her obvious side-long glances at him, and Khan tried to hide his pleasure. Good – let her think he _cared_, let her think her _concern_ was shared. It would help him annihilate her friend all the more quickly.

But Zaerti glanced away just as quickly as she'd looked, and suddenly Khan wondered if he'd celebrated his victory too soon.

Zaerti's tone was self-deprecatingly dry when she replied. "What usually happens when a very clever woman falls to pieces: she met a not-so clever man."

Yet another surprise.

Miss Regent didn't strike him as the sort to stumble over feelings for a man. "I do not understand."

"You don't really need to," Zaerti cooed. She tapped a few last keys and then switched off her screen, turning to devote her full attention to the man beside her. "I don't think you're that bad, but for some reason Tyrrin's pasted you on her Kitten Killer list. And I'm forbidden from sharing sensitive information with Kitten Killers. No offense."

"I assure you," Khan said, "that I do not kill kittens."

"I'm sure you could, though," Zaerti countered, eyeing the physique his Starfleet uniform did little to camouflage.

Khan didn't like the direction the woman had steered their conversation. And he was incredibly confused. "As could you."

"But I _wouldn't_. That's kind of the point." She couldn't stop herself from glancing back at Tyrrin yet again, and Khan lifted his chin to stare down his nose at his unwitting nemesis. When she looked at him once more, she barely lifted an eyebrow under the power of his glare. "You're not stupid. You know Tyrrin likes to put on a show. Well, this is how she figures out what she needs to know about a person. Some people buy the act, and she knows they aren't the brightest bulbs in the pack. Some get it – get her. But that doesn't happen very often. Usually when people don't understand they either write her off or underestimate her. Every now and then, though, she comes across someone who just doesn't care, someone who would happily strangle the kitten-ish life from her body. Those are the kitten-killers. Cold. Hard. Ruthless. I'd never have guessed when I first met you. I know you have a stick up your butt, but this is something different. I trust her opinion, though. If she says you're a kitten-killer, then I believe her."

She looked him over, appraising his physical attributes, and Khan felt his face grow even stonier. Strange – he hadn't known it was possible to be any more repulsed by the woman.

Zaerti shrugged off his wordless revulsion. "It's a shame. You could've done great things together."

.O.O.O.

Time seeped by. Tyrrin kicked herself around the office, skating over the gleaming floor on the well-oiled wheels of her desk chair. The contraption was an extremely old model, but is squeaked delightfully whenever she shifted her weight, and it was fiercely orange. It was just the sort of eyesore that drove Admiral Marcus crazy. Which, now that she considered it, was probably why she'd purchased the chair in the first place.

The man was just too easy to annoy.

Of course, most things in life were too easy.

It was easy to make friends, and just as easy to drive them away. It was easy to build an unbeatable computer system. And it was easy to break it. She needed a little distraction to complete her work, to _adjust_ a few programs and tweak a few lines of code. The work would be done in a blink, but what an important blink that would be.

She scrubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands and leaned back in her chair. When she could see again, the blank ceiling glared down at her. There was little time before Zaerti's scheduled hack. Tyrrin had to be ready. Her fingers had to be on the keys, and she had to move quickly enough to change what needed changed before anyone else realized the firewall was down. Lying was simple, and she could rant and rage and make a grand show of saving the system, but first she had to complete the mission. Her window of opportunity was brief. Everything had to be ready.

Hardly twenty four hours had passed since she bade Zaerti farewell in the shuttle bay. Tyrrin eyed the clock as she remembered their parting.

_As she stood by the shuttle, ready to board, Zaerti paused. The usual goodbyes were over, and there were no more excuses to tether her to London. It was time to depart, but her reluctance was obvious. Instead of passing through the open door, she reached back for Tyrrin._

_Zaerti cradled Tyrrin's head between her hands, holding her forehead against her own. Neither moved away as Zaerti regained control over her ragged breathing. Her shoulders shuddered with each breath, and the pants tore in and out of her lips with all the passion, fear, and regret she didn't dare put into words. A thousand possibilities died before they were ever conceived. A thousand roads untraveled – undiscovered. A friendship brought low. _

"_I'm afraid that one morning I'll wake up," she whispered, "and you'll just be gone. I'll call, and you won't pick up. I'm not your next of kin. They won't contact me when you die. I'll only know later. I'll only know when I look and can't find you. I can't help but feel…" Her voice caught. She struggled with the lump in her throat and swallowed it down on the fourth try. "I can't help feeling like you're a ghost already."_

"_And that's the way it should be."_

"_Tyr."_

"_I mean it. That's all I should be. You need to move on. You wanted me to celebrate with you, and I have. But now the party's over, and you have to get back to your life." She took a deep breath through her nose, and their breaths mingled between them, much as they had in the bar. This was the sort of casual intimacy Tyrrin would miss. It wasn't particularly sexual; it was merely a shared state of being. It was nice, sometimes, to be recognized by her breath and soul before her brain and skills. _

_She would miss this. _

"_Be well, Zaerti."_

_Her friend shook her head, and their foreheads rubbed. "Take care of yourself, Tyrrin."_

She chose not answer at the time, and eventually Zaerti did clamber aboard. She didn't look back, and Tyrrin was grateful. The fact was, Tyrrin couldn't take care of herself. She knew her own plan would destroy her, and one way or the other, she would die. Marcus would find out and order a discreet execution, or her body would just fail on its own. She'd be dead before the next year was out, and that was an optimistic estimate.

The alarm in the corner of her screen chirped a warning, and the data before her blinked as the system shuddered. Tyrrin snapped to attention.

Zaerti was in.

.O.O.O.

Jacobs was, once again, asleep at his desk. And Khan was, once again, struggling to find a gap in the iron fence Tyrrin Regent had woven around her systems. He was, once again, unsuccessful. His frustration was made all the more potent by the fact that, mere hours ago, another had done what he could not and slipped past the defenses and into the core of Regent's programming. She'd caught and foiled the assault, but the fact remained: another lesser being had proven their skills superior to his own. A growl crawled up his throat. It shouldn't be possible. He was better. Granted, the girl had years of experience with this technology which he did not, but that was no excuse. He'd had months now to compensate for his time asleep, and he was as capable with the new technology as any that had been born into the era of machines. And yet…

Tyrrin Regent was still beating him. She was shaming him, and she wasn't even aware of her daily victory. No matter what he tried, or how persistently he experimented with various algorithms to hack to the system, he couldn't get through. And so his frustration grew, and his patience wore thin. How difficult would it be to kidnap and torture the little annoyance? Surely he could take care of everything before Jacobs awoke. But then he'd have a corpse to explain, or at the least a severely wounded technician, and he couldn't formulate an escape plan until he knew exactly what he was dealing with. Where were his people? Were they in Section Thirty-One? Were they on the Jupiter station, where the _Vengeance _was being built? Were they somewhere else? On a ship, perhaps? Or simply left in some desolate corner of the universe where Khan wouldn't think to find them? There were too many possibilities, and not enough data. Without information, there simply couldn't be a plan. He would not risk his people any more than was strictly necessary.

For the first time in his life, Khan didn't know what to do. It was particularly vicious torture.

Jacobs snorted in his sleep, and Khan glanced over his shoulder. The man was a nuisance. It would be the easiest thing the world to break his neck, and yet Khan was bound with invisible links of iron. Seventy two, to be precise.

He looked back at his screen and immediately stiffened.

A dialogue box had appeared, though he had opened none, and in it was a string of alarming, beautiful, dangerous words.

_Hello, Khan. I've found your crew. I'll help you save them. _

_ -Marla_

**A/N: If you saw that coming, I'll give you a cookie. If you understand what just happened, I'll give you another cookie.  
**

**Two questions: First, I've seen a lot of fic authors make playlists for their stories, and I was curious if this is something you'd all be interested in? If not, that's grand, but there are certain songs I practically listen to on repeat when I write this stuff, and I'd be happy to share (or maybe share one per chapter?). Second, updates are predominantly delayed because my job is long and intensely physical, which means I'm pretty well wiped when I get home, BUT updates are also delayed because the original fiction I write. I'm using one of my stories as a sort of novel blog to create a platform I can hawk to agents, so if you're interested in seeing my original (and better quality) work, just send me a message/mention your interested in a review, and I'd be MORE than happy to direct you to the tale. Obviously that's not required, but the sooner I get an agent, the sooner I can get published, which means I can start working towards jobs that don't leave me feeling like I've been run over by a truck, which means I'll have more energy to waste on delighful fic-ification. Savvy? **

**So, the second wasn't really a question. Deal with it. **

**THANKS TO ALL THE LOVELY REVIEWERS! YOU ROCK MY YOSHI SOCKS!**

**Replies to Anons:**

**Kat: Thanks so much for your review! Wow, you really thought this out, haven't you? Khan is EXTREMELY complex, primarily because he doesn't operate by a recognizable or relate-able code of conduct. He has one, yes, but it doesn't mesh well with others'. His goals are different. His worldview is different. He's even DESIGNED differently. I've been going back to the old stuff for reference points a lot (raised by a Trekkie, what can I say?), and that will show in later chapters, but this fic is definitely shaped by the Khan from _Into Darkness_. What he experiences before/during the film alter him as a character. In the original series he's a tremendous flirt and is extremely enigmatic, but in the new film he's exceptionally cold, and I find that interesting. I hope to explore the differences and why they're there. Thanks again so much for your review!**


	9. Fairytales

**Disclaimer: No own; no sue.**

Fairytale

It was a good thing Tyrrin slept so rarely. By day, she ran Section Thirty One. By night, she helped their pet superman save his crew. It made for a poor sleep schedule. She had the luxury of two, perhaps three hours per night, and even that was a luxury she was happy to forego. Eventually her body would demand rest, and she'd lapse into a long sleep that wouldn't lift until it had its drowsy way with her, but until that time she had work to do, and she'd be damned if she chose to snuggle with her pillow rather than save seventy-odd lives.

She watched as Khan warily crept along the path she'd outlined for him over the past few days' communication. They'd arranged the best time for him to slip his minders, and the best route to take in order to reach his destination undetected. With access to all the security cameras, and thorough blueprints of the entire Section, Tyrrin was more than capable to meeting the necessary demands. A camera out here, a vent accessed there. It was like covering for herself, but easier. Khan had to do the sneaking. All she had to do was sit at the computer and press a few buttons. Most of her work was done in advance.

This was kids' stuff compared the Great Hack. Now she really was the goddess of Section Thirty One. Her will was law. She made it so.

But this was the first night Khan would actually see his people again, and Tyrrin was nervous. What would he do? If he made a scene, security would surely hear, and then she'd be caught between a rock and hard place. She wouldn't be able to help Khan, and Marcus wouldn't have any trouble figuring out who was manipulating his precious security feed.

They had to be _very_ careful, or this would all blow up in their faces.

She watched as Khan retraced the steps she'd taken – what? – mere weeks before. He reached the falsely labeled storage room, where Admiral Marcus stored his personal refuse, and Tyrrin imagined she saw him pause before he stepped through the door she opened for him. Family reunions were always awkward. What must it be like to look down upon the faces of your friends after hundreds of years? After you lost one of them? When you relied on the mercy of a stranger to save them all?

Khan approached the first cryotube, and he reached out to ghost his fingers across the frosted glass. Tyrrin looked away. The man deserved his moment of privacy. She could give him that.

During all those man hours spent discretely wooing Khan's trust, she'd layered her defense. Khan was a creature of habit. Every night when the guards locked him in his room – _cell_ – he performed the same routine. He would shower (footage Tyrrin was careful not to ogle), then sleep. And that was all. He would rise and dress at precisely the same time each morning, and that was without the use of an alarm. Then he would just sit there. Silently. Back straight. Hands in his lap. Gaze at the juncture of floor and wall. Like a very good schoolboy who'd learned his lesson. Well, Tyrrin prided herself on being a bad influence. Once she'd gotten everything she needed from the routine, she mixed the pieces together in a random soup of sequenced clips and rigged the footage into the security feeds. With Khan's electronic minders blinded, it was a simple matter of directing him around the guards patrolling the halls. It was an oversight on Marcus's part not to station permanent guards outside Khan's room. But the walls were thick, and he had the planet's best hacker running his security system. Doubtless he thought the beast well caged. It was a pity the zookeeper had experienced a change of heart.

She returned her eyes to the screen, and found Khan exiting the storeroom. His expression was raw. For all the Augments' claims to be utterly superior, they were still brought low by emotion. Chiefly ambition, of course, but they suffered from the usual gambit of human cares, and what they felt, they felt keenly. The truth of this had never been more obvious as Khan slowly pulled himself away from his people. His eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and his mouth was tight and lined with restrained agony. Yet his posture was looser than it had been before.

Khan had found hope again.

Tyrrin felt inexplicably warm as she watched Khan return to his room. For once, something had gone right. She'd done well, and someone had benefited from her deviousness. As Khan slipped into his bunk, he paused, and Tyrrin tilted her head as he lifted his eyes to the most prominent of the suite of cameras in his room.

"Thank you."

For a second, she couldn't believe he'd said it. But she kept watching, and his gaze lingered on the camera, saying with his eyes what he had just uttered aloud. After several moments, he broke contact and shifted into his customary sleeping position.

Tyrrin slapped the correct buttons to disengage the security blind on autopilot and sat back in her chair. Her fingernail found its way into her mouth, and she chewed thoughtfully as she considered.

Everything was going perfectly. Khan trusted her enough to follow her lead down to his crew, and he understood the plan well enough not to deviate from it. And now he'd _thanked_ her.

Everything was going perfectly.

So why was she dedicating so much thought to it? Maybe it was because of the odd fluttering in her stomach. Maybe it was paranoia. She always went a little paranoid before she crashed, and her body was demanding sleep.

She just needed to stop for the night.

Tyrrin felt the crash approaching, and she made herself comfortable under the desk. Her focus faded rapidly, but even as her body shut down, her mind refused to be still.

So she told herself a bedtime story, and it all began in San Francisco.

Once upon a time, a bright young ensign went looking for help with her PADD and followed the recommendations of her superiors, all of which led her to an even brighter young techie who staunchly refused to join any organizations requiring uniforms. They became friends right away, and as the ensign soared ever higher in rank, the techie's reputation grew. The ensign, one Zaerti Carter, knew right away that her friend was a genius, but it took a little longer to convince everyone else. But her friend, Tyrrin Regent, was clever, and she won friends easily. Soon she made her living running odd jobs for Starfleet, handling the problems and solving the issues their own techs couldn't quite fix. Soon enough, she was an official consultant.

And then Zaerti made First Officer. She was assigned to the _Argonaut_, a Constitution class ship captained by the young but charismatic Alistair Stockton. Just before Zaerti's first mission with her new crew, the ship's primary technician fell ill, and the medics grounded him. It was fortunate that Zaerti knew just the woman to take his place. Though not a member of Starfleet, special allowances were made to allow Tyrrin to accompany the crew as a temporary replacement for their downed officer. Tyrrin acclimated quickly, and soon she knew the ship better than those who'd built it. The crew accepted her with only a minimal kerfuffle.

In a ship full of uniforms, her independent style was eye catching, and her quick laugh lingered in men's ears. Zaerti noticed her captain's interest in her little techie friend. And she approved. Soon she was looking for excuses to leave them alone together, and it didn't take long for them to start seeking excuses on their own. He was sarcastic and funny, and Tyrrin enjoyed their verbal games. Soon things became physical, and the couple began aggressively breaking any and all regulations regarding public displays of affection. Their relationship was like a wildfire – sudden, hot, dangerous. But they were all young and more than a little stupid, so they fed the fire at every opportunity.

It wasn't their brightest moment.

Starfleet accepted Tyrrin's position aboard the _Argonaut_ so gracefully due to the mission assigned to the ship. At the edge of friendly space, a remote lab dedicated to the development of advanced technology had gone silent. Command feared one of the new toys had gone boom, and they needed an expert to investigate the situation.

They were right about one thing: they needed an expert. Just not a technician.

Tyrrin beamed down with the captain and a handful of security officers. They found a perfectly functional station, deserted save for the naked bones of the scientists. Some local wildlife ambushed them – a creature that resembled a scorpion (except for the teeth) – and latched onto one of the red shirts.

Panic ensued. Mistakes were made. Someone called the ship, and suddenly they were back aboard. The creature came with them.

The red shirt fell in a seizure, and aside from a few poorly aimed pot-shots, no one worried over the creature as the man was rushed to med bay. It was only later, when he recovered from his attack, that they remembered the monster. No one was tremendously concerned. They'd had worse things aboard than a seizure-inducing scorpion. But then the blood work came back, and they realized the seizure rode before the body of the storm. The creature carried a slow-acting neurotoxin that settled along the security officer's central nervous system. It would be a slow and painful death. The doctors hesitated to estimate how long he had, but he would doubtless wish for less time as the toxin slowly burned away his nerves, control, and consciousness.

And the monster was still aboard.

When they finally stopped to look, they couldn't find it. During the brief hours of confusion after the attack, when the landing party had beamed aboard and the entire ship flirted with the edge of hysteria, the thing got comfy. It learned where and how to hide, and then it began a war.

It was _winning_. That meant more stings, more trips to the infirmary with suspicious puncture wounds, more bad news. Three crew members had been dosed with the poison now, including a young nurse named Cassandra Claire. They were the walking dead. How long did they have left? Years? Weeks? Months? Seconds?

The thing figured out its prey wasn't dying fast enough – this was a new kind of meat. They learned later that it was a young beast, born in the wake of the science station feast. It still had a lot to learn, but it was a quick student. One night a security officer didn't report for his shift. His commanding officer discovered the man's half-scavenged corpse in his bunk. What remained of the security officer was littered with sting marks.

And still they couldn't find it.

But Tyrrin was the brain of the ship. This was her territory, and she took the invasion personally, especially when the creature claimed its first official fatality. Some things just wouldn't fly on her ship.

She engaged the monster in a round of speed chess. Tyrrin closed an air duct. The creature found a wiring shaft. Tyrrin blocked a corridor. The creature occupied a store room. Eventually, after three days without sleep and hand cramps from the pit, Tyrrin cornered the beast. With all other roads closed to it, the creature ventured into the open – a hallway to be precise. The area bristled with cameras, installed by tremulous volunteers from across the ship, ensuring the creature couldn't duck from view and vanish again. That was the hardest part of the game – keeping an eye on the beast.

She drove it into the trap and slammed the door on its spiky ass. Two emergency bulkheads made for a wonderful airtight prison. The hall had no vents. No access ports. No doors. Only thick walls, a thick floor, and a thick ceiling.

She won.

The monster was trapped. The battle was over. The day was officially saved. But Tyrrin failed to factor one element in her grand scheme, and that was human stupidity.

It took a week to get back to Earth, and during all that time, the creature preyed on the crew's minds. Everyone glanced over their shoulders and dodged shadows. Their fears consumed their dreams, and soon they experienced nothing but nightmares. Their prisoner especially tormented the captain. Alistair. Tyrrin's new flame. After all, it was technically his ship the monster invaded. His crew were dying. It was all very personal. And his ego was very delicate. And quite large. So it was only a matter of time before it overwhelmed his common sense. He wanted a poetically gory vengeance on the thing, and he wasn't willing to wait for it.

In retrospect, Tyrrin always regarded her romance with the dear captain as the stupidest decision of her life. And she never forgave herself, or him, for that.

One night as she sat at her post, turning in her chair, warming her hands with a cup of coffee as she scanned the live feed of the corridors leading to _the_ corridor, she saw something. Someone, actually. And he had a phaser. There could be no mistaking the intent in his eye.

Tyrrin was out the door before her cup shattered on the floor.

She caught up with him just as he began to key in his override code to the imprisoning bulkhead.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" She had never been so angry in her life. She'd dedicated herself to besting the monster, and she'd succeeded. She had saved the crew. Captain or not, this man, this _idiot_, had no right to compromise the safety of his crew. He had no right to destroy her work.

But he didn't even turn around as she approached.

"I'm going to end this," he said. "Once and for all."

"No, it's going to end _you_." By this point, she was practically breathing fire. She hoped he could feel the heat on the back of his neck. She was certainly standing close enough to burn the git. "Seriously – what's wrong with you? Did you take something? Are you on drugs? I mean really."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Well, that's good, because I _don't_." She wasn't getting through to him. Time for another approach. "Alistair," she laid a hand on his shoulder, "your crew is safe. You're safe. I'm safe. We're all safe. But if you open that door, someone else is going to get hurt. Just take a moment to think about this. You're smart. I wouldn't be with you if you weren't. This is a really, _really_ bad idea. Just… just trust me, okay?"

His fingers hesitated over the final number. "I have to do this." He finished the code.

The door opened, and Alistair raised his phaser, but the creature was faster, and it wasn't as stupid as he was. While he unlocked the door, it prepared to spring. Desperation had made it even more savage, and its ferocity was unrestrained.

It sprang toward Alistair's face, and Tyrrin shoved him aside.

The sting barely even hurt.

When she returned to consciousness, the creature was a smoking mess, and the ship's doctor was leaning over her with a grim expression.

And that was the story of how she began to die. Her life became a downhill slope, and Tyrrin made herself busy severing any and all connections to the fated ship. She cut her friends out of her life lest they be poisoned by her rising disregard. She tried to make her life a thing she wouldn't miss when she lost it. She tried to make herself someone who would not be missed when she passed. The process hurt, but what hurt more was that her friends, her family – they all let her. When she cut the cords, no one clung to the frayed ends and tugged her back.

Except Zaerti. And now even she must move on.

Her life was an inverted fairytale. Things started well and fell apart. She rose from the average child of a divorcee to Queen of the Techs. She found a friend. She fell in love.

But her lover was an arrogant ass with all the decision making prowess of a first grader, and now she had the privilege of dying for his stupidity.

**A/N: Behold Ye Great Info-Dump of DOOM. Yeah... sorta sorry about that... but for some reason this is the only way I could get the back story to actually fit where it needed to. So... yeah. Sorry. Also sorry for the delay. Having a few real world issues and a few real world adventures. Dragged my flatmate to her first con (which was awesome!) and she wants to go to another in a few months (which is awesome!). I also got personal feedback from a group of published authors there concerning my original work, which was very exciting, especially since all their critiques had to do with style and helped me overcome problems I was already aware of. You know when you look at something you wrote and you think, "Something's wrong, but I don't know what"? That's where I was. And now I'm making progress again!**

**Wow. Two info dumps, then. Fic and personal life. Wow. Don't mind me. It's the coffee. And the tea. And the other coffee... **

**THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE REVIEWS! I'm so incredibly flattered, and so excited that you're all having fun, because that's the most important thing about fan fic. **

**Big stuff coming up in the next few chapters, so get excited!**

**One or two people were interested in the songs I use when I'm writing, so here's a very rough scatter-shot for this fic:**

_**Panic! At the Disco – The Ballad of Mona Lisa; **_

_**Kyla La Grange – Woke Up Dead; **_

_**Halestorm – Love/Hate Heartbreak; **_

_**Muse – Panic Station;**_

_**IAMX and Imogen Heap - My Secret Friend;**_

_**Victorius - Sasurai Goza Makura;**_

_**IAMX - Bernadette;**_

_**Hurts - The Road;**_

_**Jack White - Love is Blindness;**_

_**Florence and the Machine - Heavy in Your Arms;**_

_**Son of Rust - The Highest Cost;**_

_**Verona - Dark in My Imagination**_

_**Marina and the Diamonds - Cuckoo**_

_**Florence and the Machine - No Light, No Light**_

**A dark tone (spoilers?) with a hint of romance/sexual tension. A bit angsty, but also kinda flirty. Rather like Tyrrin. You could also consider the "Carmelldansen" an unofficial part of this list, purely for the crack-ish aspects of Tyrrin's personality. **

**Special thanks to those interested in my original work - reading my stories is the greatest compliment you could give me.**

**Replies to Anons:**

**Kat: Thank you very much! Khan is so tricky to write. It's very easy to let one aspect of his personality overwhelm the others, and I'm ecstatic that you think I'm doing well. Yes - that is the reference! I won't tell you where I'm going with it, though. You'll have to stick around. Thanks again so very, very much!**

**JC: Thanks so much for the review! I know, I'm really awful with the cliffhangers, but I just love the sound of your screams... At least this chapter wasn't a cliffhanger.. ish. Sorta. Kinda? I don't know. But hopefully I will update by the end of the week. Thanks again!**

**chisscientist: Thanks for your reviews! They were lovely. Khan is a nightmare and a treat at the same time. His head is a mess, so I have to always check over what I've done to make sure he's still in-character. I'm so happy you think I'm doing a good job, though! Thanks again!**

**Canno: Thanks for your review! I'm so happy you like the fic. Refreshing, eh? With a side of cucumber water? Thanks so much for the compliment! I hope you enjoy the rest of the story.**

**morumotto: Thanks for the review! I see you got the reference! So happy! I think I confused a few people. And - yes - I liked the Kitten Killer bit, too. I felt delightfully mischievous. Thanks again!**


	10. Crash

**Disclaimer: No owning, no suing. Thanks.**

Tyrrin crashed hard, and her dreams tugged her far away from the waking world. She only woke up when Jacobs came looking for her. His wasn't a particularly nice face to wake up to.

She gave him one bleary blink, and he said, "Admiral Marcus wants to see you."

His face was dreadful. Awful. Downright horrible. But Marcus's was worse. She dragged herself out from beneath her desk with a moan and flopped onto her belly, caring for neither grace nor maturity. She had, after all, just slept under her desk like a child hiding in her father's office. What remained of her dignity wasn't worth preserving.

And, after all, it wasn't like she hadn't slept there before.

She hadn't slept as long as she needed, though, and her body was even more sluggish than her mind. Marcus had atrocious timing.

"Of course he does," she grumbled. Her voice was sleep-hoarse. "I'll go. As soon as I remember how my feet work."

"Generally by placing one before the other. Or at least, so I have been told."

Tyrrin pried her face from the ground to glare at Khan, who she hadn't even _noticed_, as he gazed passively down at her. The hope from his trip below still gleamed in his face, and Tyrrin warmed to the conversation.

"When did you grow a sense of humor?" The spark of levity died from his eyes, and Tyrrin huffed. He didn't know who she was. She'd forgotten. In his mind, she was only the enemy, and a very childish enemy at that. Her smile returned. It must drive him crazy that he couldn't outwit her. Her smile only seemed to bother him more, as his neutral expression grew stiffer and colder. The mask was back. Playtime was over. Time for coffee.

She refused to face Admiral Marcus without a cup of java.

.O.O.O.

"I hear you've refused the standard medical exam this cycle."

Tyrrin knew when she accepted the position in Section Thirty-One that Admiral Marcus was a bit of a bitch, but that didn't make her any happier as she stared at him from across the desk like a naughty teenager in the principal's office. It was like high school all over again, and that was a dance she didn't want to swing. She made a point of ignoring all orders issued by the cerebrally-damaged. Marcus wasn't dropped on his head as a child – someone dribbled the boy across the full basketball court.

"Not any reason to," she said. "As we both know."

"True. I knew when I signed you on that you were nearing your expiration date." The Admiral steepled his fingers, peering at her over the pinnacle of his nails. His dead eyes bored into her, and Tyrrin stared back with utter boredom. She didn't recognize his authority. At last, he broke the eye contact and looked away with a mighty sigh. It was obvious. It was fake. Tyrrin could smell the bull on his words before he even spat them. He was as bad an actor as he was an admiral. "I'm worried about you, Tyrrin."

She shrugged. "You can call me Regent. No point pretending we're friends or anything. Wouldn't want the underlings getting the wrong impression, after all."

He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "I find myself wondering what a girl like you – a bright young thing with too much time on her hands – might find herself capable of when the pressure's on."

Her thoughts flew instantly to the Great Hack, and shot from there to the Great Rescue Effort. A little chill tickled the base of her spine, and she wondered if she'd made a mistake. Had Marcus found out what she was doing? Had he found evidence of her tampering on Khan's behalf? No. They wouldn't be having this conversation if he had. She'd already be dead, or at least mostly dead.

So, what then? Did he suspect? Was that it? Was this an interrogation? "I'm afraid I don't understand, Admiral."

"And I'm afraid you do." His thin lips compressed into a tight line, and Tyrrin could practically smell the frustration leaking from his pores. "If I was in your shoes – if I know my days were numbered and there would be no consequences for my actions – I'm pretty sure I'd be capable of anything."

Tyrrin didn't veil her sneer. In fact, she exaggerated the mocking expression and let it seep into her voice. One crappy performance deserved another. "I'm sure you would be, _sir_. But we're _vastly_ different people. I'm not that stupid. Everything has consequences, even if I'm not breathing to smell the stink.

"Now, if you want to make some kind of accusation – go ahead. But this just sounds like your inner diva making a break for the limelight. You gave me this job _because_ I'm 'on the clock' as it were. Now you say you don't trust me for the very same reason. That doesn't sound like justifiable fear. That sounds like indecision. Poor leadership at its soggiest. I have no idea what you'd be capable of, Admiral. But I'm not weak enough to let my circumstances corrupt my actions. I'm me. And I'll stay me until I'm a twitching mess on a hospital bed. All men may be equal, but women are superior. Thank you. Good day. Was there anything else?"

"I could do with less sass," he said. The warning rang clear in his voice, but Tyrrin was good at ignoring red lights.

"I could do with more brain cells."

And that, at long last, finally cracked the Admiral's feeble grip on his temper. "I mean it, Regent," he said. As he continued, his voice climbed to a yell. "I'm responsible for dozens of lives in this base, and I'm not afraid to do what's necessary. If you give me a reason to cut you out of the picture, rest assured I will.

"I let you run off with your little friend from Headquarters, and I expected you to get the heat out of your blood. Now it's time to man up and do your job. Aren't you supposed to be the best?"

The hack. Of course he'd notice. That was the point. Did he notice everything, though? That was the real question. So much as a shadow of doubt, and…

Tyrrin didn't let her flutter of nerves show. "I am the best."

"Then how did someone hack into Section Thirty One?" A fine spray of spit flew as he yelled, and Tyrrin couldn't resist wincing away. Fear was one thing. Repulsion was another.

"I'm the best, but I do have competition," she said, playing the grown-up, keeping her voice steady. "This section has more than its fair share of enemies, and more than a few curious investigators on the outside. You're not the only one who's _upset_, Admiral. I. Don't. Get. Hacked. When I've finished upgrading every system, retuned each firewall, re-encrypted our full data stream, then I'm going to _find_ the culprit. And if I'm in a good mood, I might let you help me ruin their life."

Nothing wooed the war-monger like the threat of violence. He reclined in his chair, appeased, and Tyrrin lifted her chin. She hoped her pulse wasn't leaping out of her throat.

The snake's eyes glittered, and Tyrrin only had a moment of warning before he shot his last dose of venom. "Do you have enough time for all that?"

"Oh, I will." She had ample time to finish what needed doing, and it was much more impressive than beefing up Section Thirty One's cyber security. "Don't worry, _sir_. I'll do my job."

.O.O.O.

Tyrrin didn't realize she was lonely until she went home. At work, the hubbub and ruckus kept her mind spinning with new problems and fresh stupidity to punish. But at home, everything went quiet. There were plenty of people in the world, it was just that none of them were _with_ her. Her flat was her world, and when she opened the door, there wasn't so much as a dog to greet her. Not that she had the time or patience to care for an animal, but still… The books sat on their shelves, growing dustier by the day, and her art blossomed and faded in waves she only half-consciously created.

She tried not to think about dying, but she was, and thinking about it was inevitable. When the others died, they had their families around them, and loved ones traveled from systems away to be with them in their time of need. Zaerti was the only family Tyrrin had, and she wasn't family in any biological sense. Their relationship was irregular but strong, and now she knew that it'd come to an end. Zaerti couldn't bear to watch her die. That was why she came when she did. It was a way to make her apologies, close the book, and clear the slate. She'd chosen not to build new relationships after the incident, and though she remained cheery, she distanced herself with her actions and let her sarcasm deflect affection. She was a natural snark, but she rarely tried to curb her tongue anymore. She made herself exasperating, and not a little exhausting. It kept her separate, but no one noticed the gap.

No one would stand by Tyrrin's bed as she died. The doctors wouldn't have to gradually shoo mourners out of the room in order to prepare for her autopsy. So little was known about the neurotoxin – all the victims' bodies were already claimed by science. They needed to understand how they died in order to prevent future deaths. But it was a cold idea, made all the chillier by the fact that she would, at best, get to look out a window as she died. No friendly faces. No flowers. Just a fading view and a tray full of scalpels.

Maybe that was why she'd chosen Khan and his desperate cause. She didn't want to be alone, even if her compatriots had no idea she was on their side.

She was so tempted to just come out and tell him. It wouldn't take a direct confession. A look. A nod. A hint. A name. Anything. He would know; he was clever enough. But if she caved to the need for acknowledgement, she'd get them all killed. Marcus was thick as a brick sometimes, but he wasn't stupid, and he was already looking for a reason to get rid of her. She couldn't risk Khan, and she certainly couldn't jeopardize his crew. Any gratitude would be eclipsed by his loss, and Tyrrin wouldn't get another chance to save him. If Marcus didn't kill her, Khan would.

She tried to convince herself that she was reassured by the fact that her secret was so safe, but it was a cold sort of comfort. Her own allies would kill her before she could breathe the truth. That was fact.

She was dying.

That was also a fact.

Tired of her thoughts, she went to the kitchen and made herself some tea. Just the sight of the warm amber drink soothed her, and she plucked it from the counter with unabashed joy. Just as she brought the rim to her lips, a sharp pain lanced her temple, and she had just enough time to recognize the impending headache before the spike of pain drove deeper into her skull, and she lost all sense of where she was or what she was doing. All she could do was close her eyes against the agony and squeeze her lip between her teeth until she tasted copper. She might have spent an hour like that before the pain left. She didn't know.

When she opened her eyes, her cup was spread across the floor in a dozen pieces. One shard was embedded in her palm. The tea gleamed in a spattered puddle, dotted with her blood.

She'd made quite the mess of things.

**A/N: Atrociously short, I know, but please forgive me. Flatmate's future mother-in-law randomly scheduled a visit, so it was a mad rush to turn our tornado-wreck-of-a-duplex into a trustworthy-and-virtuous-daugher-in-law's-place. I didn't realize we had so much carpet...**

**And, you know, it's almost Halloween!**

**Thanks to all the lovely reviewers! You make my days so much brighter.**

**Replies to anons:**

**em: Thanks so much for the review! The wait turned out longer than I planned, but I hope it wasn't TOO long. Thanks again!**

**Kat: So happy you liked her backstory! I was a little worried about it, but I'm a little worried about a lot of things, like trees falling through the roof, or strange mold on my pizza, or what would happen if the world lost all its Twinkies... but that already happened... Anyway! Thanks again so very, very much! I'd love to comment on your conjecturing, but that would necessitate spoilers. Thanks again!**


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